Sol Northampton (previously officially and still locally known as Sol Central Northampton) is a leisure complex in

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

, England, with a multi-screen cinema, gym and

beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment dealing with cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, and medical spas. Beauty treatments Massage for the body is a ...

among other facilities. It was constructed in 2002 to replace the

Barclaycard Barclaycard (; stylized as barclaycard) is a brand for credit cards of Barclays PLC. , Barclays had over ten million customers in the United Kingdom. History Barclays launched Barclaycard on 29 June 1966, initially as a charge card, but followi ...

head office building previously sited there from the 1970s before relocating to the nearby Brackmills industrial estate. In the late nineties after Barclaycard had moved to its new offices in Brackmills, plans were drawn up to redevelop the site. Northampton's then only main cinema was at Sixfields, constructed when the football club moved its home there. It was and is by and large difficult to get to from other areas in the town. The idea was to build a new leisure and retail space within the town centre similar to nearby places such as

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

which had recently opened the Xscape Centre. When opened in 2002, it contained a hotel, night club/bar, gym and health club and a UCI (now Vue) 10-screen cinema complex seating over 2,500 with a 3-D facility. In 2018 the "Central" was officially dropped from the name, and the owning company began looking for new tenants to fill vacant parts of the building. In February 2020 the roof was damaged in high winds. This necessitated closure of two streets (Marefair and Horsemarket) bounding the site for 16 days, whilst the roof was repaired and adjudged to be safe.

References

External links

Official Website of Sol Northampton
Buildings and structures in Northampton Cinemas in Northamptonshire {{Northamptonshire-struct-stub