Report - The Tudor Theatre and Cinema, West Kirby - August '11

[Xan_Asmodi]

Visited with Sim2Lew

The day seemed to be one of cinemas, which is odd, considering I can count the amount of times I've been in the last 10 years on my hands and I've never explored a cinema before. We checked out three that day. Two over in Liverpool and this on in West Kirby.

Lew arrived at mine at the usual time of 11am and we where soon out and headed over to Liverpool. The first cinema we apprached we didn't want to be spotted by the guys cleaning cars literally 5 meters away. Right, so off we go to the second cinema. We get on the bus and 20 minutes later are deposited over the other side of the main road from the place. Again some kind of access to the grounds would have been possible, but we didn't want to attract any unwanted attention.

Another bus back into town then onto West Kirby. I know Lew has recently done a report on this place but I wanted to see it for myself. It beat my expectations actually.

The Tudor was designed by architect A J Thraves and opened in 1933. I understand it had dual use as a cinema and theatre. It closed in 1965 and shared the same fate as many old cinemas, it was turned into a bingo hall and then later a restaurant. In 1985 it was converted into a shopping mall, but that was closed some years ago. I'm also under the impression that it was used as offices by Wirral Borough Council but I can't find any corrobarating sources on this apart from oral ancedote. West Kirby Light Operatic Society have a page on their site listing the cast and crew of their production of Pink Champagne from 1961.

The supermarket chain Aldi have applied for, and gained planning permission to build 1000m2 store, but disputes with Network Rail (the site is right next to West Kirby station) over ownership of land have held up progress.

Aldi was given planning permission in January of last year to build on land it had purchased in Bridge Road.

The West Kirby site - branded an "eyesore" by local councillors - remains a boulder-strewn wasteland after development work started and then came to a halt because of a dispute with Network Rail over ownership of part of the land.

The lack of progress caused anger and frustration for people living in the village.

This problem has apparently been over come.

According to the council in order for the development to have sufficient car parking spaces, as approved in the planning permission, it is necessary to excavate the embankment currently owned by Network Rail and build a retaining wall for the road.

“However, Network Rail is not prepared to dispose of its interest in the embankment to Aldi direct.”

A Network Rail spokesman said this was because it could face future liabilities if problems arise.

“Aldi has proposed, as a solution to this problem, that once Network Rail has transferred its freehold interest in this embankment to the council, the council then immediately grants a 99-year lease to Aldi, passing all the liabilities for repair and maintenance of the embankment to Aldi.”

The land is currently very derelict and an eyesore compared to the rest of the town. From what I can understand it's "long over due" for demolition. But to put peoples minds at ease Aldi has said it wants to retain part of the mock Tudor frontage.

I was suprised by the amount of original features remaining

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Looking towards the former stage

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Toward the entrance and stalls

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Some original features

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Some cliched shots

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That's it! Hope you enjoyed it.
The rest of the images are on my website, here