The total number of theatres Matcham designed is unknown and has been the subject of much speculation. The architect Victor Glasstone estimated the architect's work to include 66 new theatres and the remodelling and restoration of 58 others, between 1879 and 1910; Matcham's biographer Brian Walker lists him ahead of his contemporaries and counts 92 designs, with the closest to him being Charles J. Phipps, with 72. According to the theatre historians John Earl and Michael Sell, Matcham was the original architect for half of the 48 surviving theatres associated with him, and the rest he restored, altered or remodelled from existing buildings. A further 111 of his theatres were bombed during the wars, destroyed by fire, or demolished as part of area regeneration, mostly during the 1960s.