The area on which the Theatre stands is included in a Mid-Iron Age large fortified enclosure dating back to 500-450 BC that stretched form Oram’s Arbour down to St Peter Street. Over recent years archaeological excavations have produced evidence of Iron Age round huts and disused grain storage pits east of Tower Street and Staple Gardens, opposite the side wing of the Theatre building. According to the 1836 map of the municipal and parochial boundaries of Winchester prepared by R C Gale, Land Surveyor of the city, the area from the top of Tower Street down to Jewry Street was vacant land.

The erection of Tower House, at the far end of Tower Street, took place between 1824 and 1839 near the site of the old Hermit’s Tower mound, which dates from at least the first century AD. Built by Alderman William Butt and locally known as Butt’s Folly, the house was demolished in 1983 to make way for Kingsdale Court and Tower Court residential apartments that now occupy the site.

In 1836 Owen Browne-Carter (1806-1859), a prolific mid-19th century architect, designed the Corn Exchange, which was built at a cost of £4,000. This incorporated a cattle-market on the surrounding land. The structure is said to have been copied from Inigo Jones’s church of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, London. The agricultural complex opening on 19 February 1838 proved so successful that a lodging-house or hotel was required close by to accommodate farming communities attending the cattle-market (now Jewry Street car-park) with their livestock, buying agricultural implements and provisions from The Corn Exchange (now the Winchester Library) at the same time. Consequently in 1850 The Market Hotel was built, which consisted of two wings, the shorter on Tower Street and the longer running northwards along Jewry Street. It is quite possible that Owen Browne-Carter also designed this building. We do know that a speculative builder by the name of Vaughan erected the hotel with a splendid wrought-iron balcony along the entire frontal length, as shown in the photograph on page .

Two brothers, John and James Simpkins, had been operating The Palace, a cine-variety theatre, in the banqueting-hall of the 13th century St John’s House on the Broadway since 1910. They now wanted to create a “place of entertainment” to their own design. The opportunity arose in 1912 when The Market Hotel was put up for sale. The brothers immediately purchased the building and set about converting it into a theatre, not an easy task but one that they were determined to complete.

On 24 August 1914 the Theatre Royal opened as a cine-variety music-hall. A typical evening’s entertainment consisted of variety acts and melodramas, interspersed with screenings of silent films and the Pathé Gazette. Among the young hopefuls who trod the boards at the theatre in 1915 were Grace Stansfield, later to be better known as Gracie Fields, and Chesney Allen before his successful partnership with Bud Flanagan.
Gradually, however, the live shows became less frequent as lavish movies coming from Hollywood captured the public imagination. In the early 1920s the brothers transformed their theatre into a full-time “picture palace” and it remained so for the next 50 years. During this time the venue passed through the ownerships of Odeon Theatres Ltd and Star Group of Cinemas, the latter being responsible for closing the Theatre down on 29 June 1974. The Company applied for a demolition order with a view to erecting commercial premises on the site, but Winchester City Council responded by securing a Grade II listing for the building.

If the site had been bulldozed then another piece of theatrical history would have disappeared forever as Theatre Royal Winchester is unique; it is believed to be the country’s last surviving cine-variety theatre in its original state still in use today.