An interesting place this but tiny and very much a 'local cinema for local people'.. The cinema was originally a Victorian hall and it very much still has the feel of this as opposed to a real purpose built cinema. On the other hand tho it has pretty much all of the features you would expect of a cinema and is pretty well intact.. for now!
Entering through the front doors to the left hand side a small spiral staircase takes you up to the tiny projection room, both projectors remain although one has been partially dismantled after it was replaced with a digital system after 35mm supply dried up. To each side of the main room they have crammed in a rewind bench and a storage area but there is very little room to move and its basically just wedged in around the staircase and emergency escape ladder. Below the projection room is a sub level containing a half height store room and some projector spares.
On the other side of the main entrance I found a very small room containing a safe which would probably have been the original ticket booth but heading though another set of doors into the main lobby a more modern ticket booth seemed to have replaced it. Other than two toilets there are no other rooms at the front of house. Simply a pair of staircases heading up the a small circle with what looked like reclaimed seating from elsewhere. Only a couple of rows had the correct seat ends and two different styles at that!
Back downstairs two sets of double doors go through into a flat floored 'stalls' although theres no fixed seating so I would assume most films were just viewed from the circle. The stage is quite tall and has obviously been used for live performance as well as cinema at some point judging by the old bits of old set that were tucked away here and there.
Lastly behind the stage there is a two story block of rooms which appeared to be mainly dressing room type affairs. All were pretty empty and i didn't feel it was worth flashing the torch around too much trying to get photos of any of them.. The building is rather overlooked!
Overall pretty a quick explore but quite interesting to see what must be quite a rare survivor. Worth a look if your in the area for sure. Its a 6/10
Entering through the front doors to the left hand side a small spiral staircase takes you up to the tiny projection room, both projectors remain although one has been partially dismantled after it was replaced with a digital system after 35mm supply dried up. To each side of the main room they have crammed in a rewind bench and a storage area but there is very little room to move and its basically just wedged in around the staircase and emergency escape ladder. Below the projection room is a sub level containing a half height store room and some projector spares.
On the other side of the main entrance I found a very small room containing a safe which would probably have been the original ticket booth but heading though another set of doors into the main lobby a more modern ticket booth seemed to have replaced it. Other than two toilets there are no other rooms at the front of house. Simply a pair of staircases heading up the a small circle with what looked like reclaimed seating from elsewhere. Only a couple of rows had the correct seat ends and two different styles at that!
Back downstairs two sets of double doors go through into a flat floored 'stalls' although theres no fixed seating so I would assume most films were just viewed from the circle. The stage is quite tall and has obviously been used for live performance as well as cinema at some point judging by the old bits of old set that were tucked away here and there.
Lastly behind the stage there is a two story block of rooms which appeared to be mainly dressing room type affairs. All were pretty empty and i didn't feel it was worth flashing the torch around too much trying to get photos of any of them.. The building is rather overlooked!
Overall pretty a quick explore but quite interesting to see what must be quite a rare survivor. Worth a look if your in the area for sure. Its a 6/10
