# The Cornwall Coliseum & Gossips Nightclub Carlyon Bay St Austell July 2011 Part1



## crazyjon (Jul 23, 2011)

The history of this place Is everywhere so I will be brief on this and give you a link to finish my piece about the place.

The Cornwall Coliseum was opened in the mid 50's built on the waste of the Cornish mining & china clay industry which had washed down the river collecting on the beach over the years but there had been a building there since the 30's originally called the Riviera Club.

In the 60's,70's,80's It became the largest venue in the country hosting bands like Procol Harem,The Troggs,The Clash,The Jam the list is endless to say the least In the 90's it struggled to stay afloat with the rest of the country's venues down to numerous reasons one being where its location was and another that bands just didn't like the venue.

When the Plymouth Pavilions and the Hall for Cornwall In Truro opened It hit the coliseum like a ton of bricks in its later years it held allot of raves like Obsession,Dreamscape and Dance Planet closing its doors to the general public in 1999 with the nightclub next door closing its doors not long after in 2000.

In Easter 2000 it did hold one more show featuring The Cornwall Youth Brass Band but after that it was condemned as unsafe and was closed for good a few weeks later.

Since 2004 when they started stripping it the building has just sat there waiting for the wrecking ball. 

http://www.carlyonbaywatch.com/4.html
http://rprest.adsl24.co.uk/kernowbeat/coliseum.html
Here is a couple of links of explaining a bit more about the place.
Done by myself and END-PROC accessing this place is a nightmare its fenced off so tight it just screams stay out of the place with security that hangs around most of the day till 6pm.
Anyway after 3 hours of waiting gaining a tan we finally got our chance to enter the place everything was going great for 25 minutes or so when we then heard the raised voices shouting OK WE NO YOUR IN THERE COME OUT OR WE WILL SEND IN THE DOGS we both froze inside the building for a good 10 minutes while the security and some helpful jo blogs lingered around waiting for us to come out to say our hearts were pumping was a understatement but we stayed firm the funny thing out of this situation was the security shot themselves in the foot by saying to the helpful jo blogs aloud we usually give them 5 shouts and they come out but if no one appears we no then that nobody's in there!! so we lingered inside the place doing the stealth walk until they buggered off and when the dogs didn't show we carried on spending a total of 2 hours in the place.
To say the place is a mess is a understatement its been like this now for 7 years and will be one day finally be knocked down and to be honest i hope its wont be long as this historic place needs a break and this has been going on for to long now.

Anyway on with the pictures 





The Main Building 














Remains of the largest Wimpy's in Cornwall




The rear of the building what would of been the stage entrance 









The old Gossips Nightclub









Whats left of the front entrance 




Fire exit on front of building




In the main arena 
























The main stage area 




This is whats left of the largest bar in the south west 




Another of the bar area 




From the door of the bar area




Kitchen area behind the bar




A very rusty oven no pies been cooked in this anymore




Main entrance area 




Where we had to hide when security turned up outside 




Main ticket and reception area 




Second floor and stairs of what would of been rear balcony and where i nearly fell through the floor near offices of complex 




Bar area for rear balcony 




By door to rear balcony




View from rear balcony


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## smiler (Jul 26, 2011)

Nice One, Thanks.


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