The Cragburn Pavilion was built in

Gourock Gourock ( ; gd, Guireag ) is a town in the Inverclyde council area and formerly a burgh of the County of Renfrew in the west of Scotland. It was a seaside resort on the East shore of the upper Firth of Clyde. Its main function today is as a r ...

in 1935-6 by J. & J.A. Carrick, in brick and stucco with prominent

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

fluting along its front North-facing elevation. It consisted of a large auditorium with stage, ancillary rooms and a restaurant/bar area. Cragburn was built to try to attract a greater share of Scotland's growing holiday trade. Many local bands played regularly for dancers from 1936 to 1966 including Charlie Harkin's ''Kit Kat Orchestra'' and Henri Morrison and his Swingstars. Both bands were contenders in the All British Dance Band Championships. As Cragburn became established, many of Britain's top bands visited Cragburn, including

Joe Loss Sir Joshua Alexander "Joe" Loss (22 June 1909 – 6 June 1990) was a British dance band leader and musician who founded his own eponymous orchestra. Life Loss was born in Spitalfields, London, the youngest of four children. His parents, Israe ...

Oscar Rabin Oscar Rabin (26 April 1899 – 20 June 1958) was a Latvian-born English bandleader and musician. He was the musical director of his own big band. Rabin was born in Riga to a family of Jewish origin, and came to London, England as a child. A b ...

, Lew Stone, and many more. Cragburn also hosted a summer show each year with top artists from Scotland including Tommy Morgan, Alec Finlay, Larry Marshall, and ''The One O-Clock Gang''. As the pop scene started taking over in the 1960s, the

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...

scene started to go into decline, and although the pavilion continued to be used as a facility for variety shows, pantomimes and functions by the local authority who owned it, it was becoming clear that greater financial benefit could be had by selling off the land for development. Cragburn pavilion was closed in the 1990s, and a block of flats has been built on the original site.

References

External links

Article about musicians who played at Cragburn PavilionTheatres Trust Database: Cragburn Pavilion
Buildings and structures in Inverclyde Entertainment in Scotland Art Deco architecture in Scotland Gourock Buildings and structures completed in 1936 1936 establishments in Scotland Demolished buildings and structures in Scotland {{Scotland-struct-stub