The floors above were advertised as being suitable for a drapery warehouse, but they opened as an entertainment centre, firstly as the Britannia Music Hall.

Successive lessees include HT Rossborough, William Kean , Arthur Hubner and AE Pickard and was closed in 1938 when the Trongate building was sold by the Pickard family to the multiple tailors Weaver to Wearer Ltd of Leeds, which in the 1950s became part of Great Universal Stores Ltd. Fortunately, following the removal of the false ceiling on floor one in 2003, the Britannia was opened again.

The new successor property, built and owned by Archibald Blair in 1857, completed in 1858, was designed by architects Thomas Gildard & Robert Macfarlane.

The classical and elegant design of the front of the building shows cherubs, carved swags and Grecian decoration.

The first lessee, John Brand, a discharged bankrupt who previously ran a singing saloon in the Saltmarket, named it Britannia Music Hall and in the early 1860s, he added long, wooden pews in the balcony.

[9] This structure (or false ceiling) separated the upper part of the auditorium from the lower area, which became a store for the retailer.

In 1906, A. E. Pickard leased the Music Hall ( much later buying the whole building from the Archibald Blair Trust around 1915) changing its name to the Panopticon.

[10] Pickard undertook some major works and brought in his American museum and waxworks from 101 Trongate, with the result that the entertainment seating was reduced to 500.