Vaudeville Court is a small housing development by Finsbury Park in north London, on the land between St Thomas’s Road and Prah Road, with the deliberately theatrical name pointing to what stood here before: the Finsbury Park Empire Theatre - londonremembers.com ![]()
The Vaudeville Embassy lies in the region of **Vaudeville Court**, somewhere near London. LOCATE SEARCH 51.5634047, -0.1050675 Vaudeville Court
# Finsbury Park Empire Theatre
The Finsbury Park Empire Theatre was part of the early-20th-century boom in variety and music hall, and is widely recorded as opening in 1910 under the Moss Empires chain - londonpostcodewalks.wordpress.com ![]()
It later became another casualty of post-war change (especially television), closing as a theatre in 1960, then being used as a scenery store.
# Demolition The building was demolished in April 1965, after Islington Council purchased the site under a Compulsory Purchase Order in 1964, and a block of flats was built on the footprint and named Vaudeville Court as a nod to the lost theatre.
# The site today
In the 2010s the site saw a newer housing scheme, built on the location of the original garages behind the tower block (still named Vaudeville Court), delivered for the London Borough of Islington, described as a compact, amenity-focused council housing infill project by Levitt Bernstein - levittbernstein.co.uk
- ribaj.com ![]()
HTML5 mp4 http://baby.fab.fish/assets/A%20WALK%20IN%20LONDON%20480p.mp4#t=20 Vaudeville Court drone footage by babyPRO.
Architectural write-ups commonly repeat the same quiet punchline: you are looking at homes “formerly” on the Empire Theatre site, even though the street scene now gives little away unless you already know the story - archdaily.com ![]()
# A plaque for the vanished theatre
The connection is not only in the name: an Islington People’s Plaque was unveiled at Vaudeville Court to commemorate the Finsbury Park Empire, keeping the memory of the venue alive in the everyday landscape of a housing estate - islington.media ![]()
# See also
- Finsbury Park
- Frank Matcham
- cinematreasures.org
- arthurlloyd.co.uk ![]()