The aim of the Going to the Pictures Project has been to help preserve a part of our local cinema heritage by collecting and recording memories from people who used and worked in the local picture houses from the 1930′s to the 1960′s.
Explore this map of 21 local cinemas within a 3 mile radius of the Plaza, from 1930 to 1960.
“I remember the club song which went like this: “To the Ode – Odeon we have come…”
Opening in the roaring 20′s The Coliseum was a large 1400 seat cinema which had balcony and cafe lounge upstairs for cinema goers to socialise and wait for the silent film screenings to begin
The beautiful building was demolished and now shops stand in its place
The fantastic five storey building was built in 1911 as a theatre and described as “artistic throughout”
In 1933/34 I went to “The Pictures” for the first time, but I was not impressed. The black and white film was very old and scratched; it looked like driving rain to me. A few years later I went again and paid a penny to get in with a penny for ice cream in the interval.
Things sold within the cinema during the 1930′s to the 1960′s were limited in terms of the refreshments and snacks sold within modern cinemas.