That first cinema at the top of Eltham High Street

This is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

Eltham Cinema, circa 1913

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

I can’t be sure but I am guessing it survived as a Picture House until the big plush cinemas further down the High Street, and in Well Hall offered a bigger and comfortable experience.

And until now that was about all I knew, but yesterday I came across The Kinematograph Year Book, Program, Diary and Directory 1914, which is packed with everything from a list of all the cinemas in 1914 with information about this new and exciting form of entertainment along with lots of adverts.

Advert

And from the book I now know that its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.  A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.  He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

In time we will learn more and perhaps also a bit more about the cinema which sadly had no listing for the number of people it could seat.

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and advert from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914, page 43

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

Chubby Checker, cowboys and Pathe News ........... Saturday morning at Well Odeon with a thank you to Sandra

Now  I am revisiting Saturday morning pictures and in particular the Odeon at Well Hall.

And as ever the memories came flooding back with a fair number of people sharing their stories which got me thinking that so much of our recent history gets lost because we just take it for granted.

But these bits of our collective story are as important as any of the great events and are often just lost.
So here is Sandra Axford Wilcox’s own vivid recollections of the magic that was Saturday morning pictures.

"I remember Saturday morning pictures at We'll Hall Odeon. 

Everyone stamping their feet when the cowboys were chasing the Indians. 

The unmistakable voice of Pathe News. 

And the competitions, my big sister made me go up on the stage for a dance off - doing The Twist to Chubby Checker. 

The manager would walk along the stage holding a much coveted biro over each dancers head and whoever got the most cheers would win the pen.... and no, I didn't win."

All of which just leaves me to hope that a shed full of more memories will tumble out.

Painting; The Well Hall Odeon © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today

Now on a dismal Saturday afternoon in Eltham during the winter of 1913 I might well have decided to take myself off to the Picturedrome where I could have seen epics like the Battle of Waterloo, stories drawn from great novels like Zola’s Germinal or melodramas loosely based on the Old Testament along with documentaries about nature, disasters at sea and much more.

The Battle of Waterloo, 1913

The obvious choice would have been the Eltham Cinema on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road, which was run by Mr Robert Frederick Bean and which had only been open for a few months.

But with the help of the tram I might instead of ventured off into Woolwich, Greenwich and even Plumstead.

And as much as the film might have attracted me so might the name of the cinema.

Some had names which reflected this new and exciting form of entertainment ranging from the Kinemacolor Palace to those incorporating the word “electric” of which my favourite was the Bijou Electric Theatre, while others traded on exotic places like the Trocadero, and the Alhambra Pavilion.

Germinal, 1913

Most also incorporated the title “Pictuedrome” and some went through frequent name changes.

But what they all had in common was that magic of sitting in the dark and seeing moving pictures many times life size telling stories of adventure, romance set in faraway places which for most people were just names on a map.

So with that in mind the choice was pretty wide.  I could have wandered over to Plumstead and visited the Imperial on Plumstead Road or taken a chance on the Windsor Electric Theatre on Maxey Road but equally could have been drawn to either the Globe on the Common or the Cinematograph at numbers 144-6 the High Street.

Greenwich offered up another three and Woolwich had six.

Judith, 1913

A century on I rather think it might be fun to go looking for these ten.  Sadly in the case of the Three Crowns, the New Cinema and the Premier Electric Theatre they are just listed as Woolwich, but the remaining seven have full addresses.

In Woolwich there was the Arsenal Kinema, Beresford Square, the Premier Electric Theatre, at 126 Powis Street, and the New Cinema at 93 New Road.

And that just left the Greenwich three, which were the Trafalgar Cinema, 82 Trafalgar Road, Chapman’s Pictures Bridge Street, the Greenwich Hippodrome, Stockwell Street, and the Theatre Royal, on High Street.

The Terrors of the Jungle, 1913

And there is the challenge.  Not that any will still exist, but armed with a modern map, a corresponding map for 1913 and a street directory for the same year it should be possible to do a bit of detective work.

Location; Eltham, Plumstead, Greenwich and Woolwich.







Pictures; stills from films available to watch in 1913, from  The Kinematograph Year Book*

*The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory 1914, http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/kinematograph-year-book-program-diary-and-directory-1914-2014-09-18.pdf

Remembering the Well Hall Odeon with a painting

Now, there has been a lot of talk recently about the cinemas of Eltham.

And like pubs on the High Street people have started championing their favourite, whether it be the ABC by Passey Place or the Gaumont on the hill.

Of course you would have to be pretty old  to remember that there was another cinema in Eltham on the corner of Westmount Road.

I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.  It opened in 1913 and was demolished in 1968

Like so many of the early cinemas it proved “not fit for purpose” when the newer, plusher and more modern looking picture houses came along later in the century.

For me the best, and the most modern looking of all our cinemas was the Well Hall Odeon.

It was just minutes away from where I lived and was somewhere I visited a lot and some where all my sisters went on a Saturday morning.

So I was pleased when Peter offered to paint the place and here is his painting.

We have been working together for a number of years now on joint ventures which have included the 80 meter History Wall installation, as well as  exhibitions and books.

Now Peter is a Preston lad always keen to tell me “that you can take the boy out of Preston, but never Preston out of the boy” which I guess is how many of us also feel about Eltham.

Work, marriage and just life may have scattered many of us across the country and beyond but this corner of south east London bounded by the river and Woolwich to the north and Kent over the county line will remain home.

So now that Peter has got a taste for Eltham we may have more of his paintings.

In the meantime just talking about Saturday morning pictures reminded him of the song he sang all those years ago.

It began with the refrain

We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile

We come along on Saturday morning
knowing it’s well worth while

And for those that want to return to those Saturdays mixing the noise, the talent contests and the old films here is a link to that lost world.  Saturday Morning Song *

Painting; The Well Hall Odeon © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

*We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile

We come along on Saturday morning
knowing it’s well worth while

Members of The Odeon Club we all intend to be
good citizens when we grow up and carriers of the free

We come along on Saturday morning
greeting everybody with a smile, smile, smile,
greeting everybody with a smile.

And as Peter points out even the screen can get it wrong.

NB the words sung by WHO? say
Members of The GB Club we all intend to be
but the words on screen where
Members of The Odeon Club we all intend to be
Found this explanation on Tinterweb as explanation for GB instead of Odeon

This one has the audio for Rank's other cinema chain (Gaumont British) hence the singer singing "GB Club" instead of "OD-EON Club". But it was the same song otherwise.

Ki-ora, a choc ice and Bambi ...... the lost picture houses of Plumstead no 1

Now a while ago I set down a challenge to find some of our lost cinemas, and quick as a flash Tricia came back with a first and the promise to find more.

So here is what she said and what I know about the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street.

The Cinematographe

“That sort of challenge is right up my street Andrew. 

I will dig out my many maps of Plumstead & Woolwich & find one for 1913. The first time I ever went to the pictures was at the Cinematographe in Plumstead High Street although it was called the Plaza in the 1950's. 

I saw Bambi, I still remember sitting there sobbing when his mummy died. 

The Plaza was more or less where Iceland is now. It had one screen & seated 528 people. The second time 

And just before i it was demolished in 2012

I went to the pictures was to see Tom Thumb at the Century Cinema which although was classed as being on Plumstead High Street it was set back and  I think the entrance was in Garibaldi Street. 

That was a larger cinema than the Plaza although it still only had one screen and seated 913. 

It closed in 1960 after which the building was many things, in 2012 it was demolished & is now flats. The images are of the Century the second image after it closed but before it was demolished.”

And that I think has set me off on a new series, Lost cinemas of Plumstead, which might well become Lost cinemas of south east London.**

Location; Plumstead

Pictures; from the collection of Tricia Lesley

*Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/off-to-flicks-in-winter-of-1913-and.html

**Lost cinemas of Plumstead, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20Plumsted 
Lost cinemas of south east London. https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lost%20cinemas%20of%20south%20east%20London

On the High Street back watching the film of your choice

So Eltham has its own cinema again.

For any one who can remember the Well Hall Odeon, the ABC on the high Street and the Gaumont this will be good news.

There may even be those who remember the old Eltham Cinema Theatre which opened in 1913 and was demolished in 1968.

I say remember it but long before it was knocked down it had ceased showing films which just leaves us with the three of which the Odeon renamed the Coronet struggled on the longest, finally become empty in 2000.

Although I do think it provides the image of a closed cinema in that warning about the dangers of film piracy shown at the pictures.

Any way I look forward to how the consultation goes and the prospect that once again on the High Street you will be able to “sit back and enjoy a film.”

In the meantime here is a reminder of how things went during the back end of the 20th century.

This is the ABC which closed its doors in 1972 and was demolished soon after

It had stood on the corner of the High Street and Passey Place for half a century.

It was opened as the Palace Cinema in 1922, showed its first talkie in 1930* and for a few brief years from 1966 to 69 was where I went with first Pamela, then Jenny and finally Ann, but that is a story for another time.

Picture; the demolition of the ABC in the High Street courtesy of Chrissie Rose.


* ELTHAM IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS, John Kennet, 1991

Goodbye to the ABC in the High Street .................. 1972

Now this picture postcard of the old ABC cinema in the High Street has a lot going for it.

For a start there is that simple observation that few of us send picture postcards today.

Mobile phones with cameras which can snap and send an image around the world in seconds have pretty much done for the old picture postcard.

Of course long before this technological whizz the postcard had its day.  The cost of postage and the demise of the frequent postal collection and delivery meant that bit by bit they were used less and less.

Unlike the start of the last century when if you wanted to arrange to meet in the afternoon or tell family you’d be home later that day the postcard was the thing.

And the early 70s I guess was the cross over point when the sale and use of the picture card was in decline.

Not that the Eltham Society thought so when they produced this one which was number 4 in a series on Eltham and may well have been chosen to mark the passing of this picture house which had opened its doors in the August of 1922 and closed half a century later.

I have fond memories of the place, it was after all a safer choice than the Odeon to take a girlfriend given that we lived just a few minute’s walk from the roundabout and you never wanted to encounter family on your first date.

Its passing caught me unawares.  At the beginning of 1972 I went back to College in Manchester and when I returned at Easter it had shown its last film and gone dark.

I can’t now remember if I took in a film at the cinema before I left home but given that the ABC was showing the newly released Steptoe and Son I don’t think I did.

And that may gives us a day in January for when the photograph was taken.

Of course given the large number of young people waiting outside it could be a Saturday but as the film was classified an A and there are plenty of adults accompanying the children it is equally likely that it will be a matinee in what was left of the holidays.

So I guess I shall have to go looking in the local press for January 1972 and in the meantime reflect on the wonderful collection of images held by the Greenwich Heritage Centre, from where I found this one.

Pictures, Eltham ABC, 1972, GRW 1647, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Saturday Morning Pictures at Well Hall Odeon in 1965

You never quite forget that mix of noise and anticipation which was Saturday Morning Pictures.

It started when the manager asked if everyone was happy, continued into the competitions and lasted through most of the morning.

It is easy to over romanticise what was just another way the cinema chain could create more revenue while introducing a young audience to the magic of the big screen.

And once you were hooked you were hooked for life.  The cycle might begin with Saturday Morning Pictures but quickly moved on to the “date” on the back row and in the fullness of time to visits with your children to Disney and of course to Saturday mornings all over again this time dropping off and collectiing a new generation of Saturday children.

But you can also be over cynical even given that what you saw was pretty dire.

I can’t say I ever enjoyed those stories of daring do by young children or the equally improbable tales of faithful dogs and intelligent dolphins saving the day.

I do remember a series which mixed the theme of Ancient Rome, alien invaders and a particularly nasty dictator.

On reflection it was probably shot on a back lot using B actors and involved lots of oddly dressed men riding on horseback across dusty plains.

You knew it was cheap because the plot didn’t follow a logical path and events often passed from bright daylight to late afternoon and back again in the course of one horse race.

All that said they were fun.  There were the cartoons and films, along with live events ranging from talent competitions and fancy dress to the appearance of a well known celebrity and it was always someone’s birthday which was met with a loud shout.

I am not sure whether it would still work today but from the 1940s into the 60s they were a way of life for many children with that added advantage that it freed up time for the adults. In the 1950’s the average weekly attendance at  children’s cinema matinees was over 1,016,000 with 1735 cinemas holding cinema matinees for children.*

The ABC chain began a special club in the 1940s for their ABC Minors complete with badge and song and birthday cards.  It cost just 6d.

I can’t now remember which cinema I went to, but I still have vivid memories of collecting my sisters from the Well Hall Odeon and getting there a little early just to catch the last ten minutes of whatever was going off.

They were never ABC Minors, after all when you lived just minutes away from the Odeon there was no point tramping all the way up to the High Street to the ABC on the corner of Plassey Place.

So that was my Saturday mornings in Eltham till mum judged that Stella and Elizabeth were old enough to take my two younger sisters without me.

I don’t suppose my mornings at the flicks had lasted that long and nor did theirs. They were probably one of the last generations to enjoy that mix of noise and anticipation in the dark accompanied by that warm smell of cinema disinfectant, and popcorn.

There may still be Saturday Morning Pictures but it costs a lot more than 6d and I can't think they will be the same, but then perhaps I am just old and biased.

* Wheare Committee http://terramedia.co.uk

Pictures, Well Hall Odeon, courtesy of Eltham, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eltham/210661675617589?fref=ts and  ABC Minors Badge, ABC Minors children’s cinema postcard Happy Birthday, 1948, BD084660
University of Essex, http://collections.ex.ac.uk/repository/handle/10472/3222?show=full
http://cinematreasures.org/video/abc-minors-matinee

At the opening of the Well Hall Odeon, May 20th 1936

Now it would be a full 28 years after the Well Odeon was open that I first saw a film there.

And of course I have no idea what the film was or for that matter almost any of the pictures I went on to see at the place.

But it was a regular haunt made more so because I had the job of taking my sisters there on a Saturday morning.

Of all the picture houses I have been in there, was something special about the Odeon.

It started with that unique box office in the centre of the foyer, that thick carpet, the decor and of course the smell.

Put them all together and you felt that this was somewhere special, a place not only to be entertained but a place where for a few hours the daily routines along with the niggles of the day could be forgotten.

And these picture houses were designed for just that purpose.  Plenty of homes back in 1936 were still austere places little in the way of luxury and by comparison drab and dim and cold.

But the Well Hall Odeon radiated style from that tall glass and tiled tower to the sweep of the entrance roof.

And it was big. It dwarfed the houses that surrounded it stretched back and was only really challenged by the church opposite.

So I am really pleased that Chrissie shared the souvenir programme with me.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Picture; souvenir booklet of the opening of the Well Hall Odeon, 1936 courtesy of Chrissie Rose

Who remembers the ABC in Eltham?

Who remembers the ABC in Eltham?

I thought I did, and was more or less certain it was where Pamela and I went for our first and only date in 1966.

It was on the corner of Passey Place and the High Street or I thought it was.
Not that I have given it much thought over the years until recently when I began searching the High Street for it.

And as I drew a blank I slowly concluded that I had imagined the whole thing which is one of the down sides of having been born in the first half of the last century.

You just assume that as the evidence is not there it never happened.  Now that I know is silly because all too often in the course of tracking a story or crawling over my family history I have come across events and places which prove I was right.

And so it is with the ABC, for despite my sisters being unable to remember the cinema, there are a few pictures of the place.

It opened as the Palace Cinema on August 22nd 1922 and closed just fifty years later.  Looking at a photograph of the place from the 1950s it seems much larger than I remember it.

I would like to have more images but so far only a few have come to light and all are copyright.

And that rather highlights one of those real concerns about our more recent past that it is vanishing without trace.

In the later 19th and early 20th century the picture postcard made certain that there was a visual record of almost everywhere.

But as the postcard went into decline so did the visual record of places leaving only the images captured by the amateur photographer whose pictures are all too often confined to private collections and rarely see the light of day.

The result I fear will be that many buildings and events like the old Whit Walks will be lost to future historians.

Now that matters and I rather think we should all do our bit for posterity and snap away, passing on the results to local history libraries and history groups, which is pretty much how Manchester has come to have 80,000 digital images of the city going back two centuries which are freely available for anyone to consult.*

And so I shall now go off and email the Greenwich Heritage Centre to see what they have on the ABC. So far I know that just twelve years after it opened the interior was remodelled and that in 1936 it was taken over by the Union Cinema chain who in turn were absorbed by Associated British Cinemas the following year.

It would be another twenty-seven years before it was renamed the ABC Cinema which was about the time I started going there.

I don’t remember how frequently I walked through its doors, but the Gaumont on Eltham Hill was a bit out of the way and given that I lived just up from the roundabout the Well Hall Odeon was a tad too close.

After all if you are out to impress a new girlfriend you can hardly do it on your own door step.

So I rather think that my date with Pamela and the big screen at Passey Place would have been followed by others with Jennie and Ann all of whom I remember with fond memories if alas the ABC has faded.

Pictures of an older Eltham in the absence of the ABC courtesy of Jean Gammons

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Eltham Cinema and a word to the wise

Now here is a building that just passed me by.

Eltham Cinema, 1913-1968

It is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.”

Like so many of the early cinemas it proved “not fit for purpose” when the newer plusher and more modern looking picture houses came along later in the century.

Holmfirth Picturedrome, 1912

A few of these old palaces of dreams do survive like the Picturedrome at Holmfirth.

It is was opened in 1912 and is a big enough to seat a couple of hundred people, has a double set of doors, with a veranda above it and must have made you feel special each time you went to watch that magic of light and moving pictures played out in the dark.

It was so at our cinema and the memories of some of those who attended the Eltham Cinema have been recorded but it is a pity that the building was lost.

There will be somewhere more pictures of the place, and perhaps even images of the inside along with the odd bit of furniture.

Palais de Luxe, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 2013

And these can turn up in the most surprising of places.

I was reminded of this when I persuaded the staff of the local Co-op to allow me upstairs into the warehouse floor.  The building had been opened as the Palais de Luxe in 1915 and converted into a supermarket in the late 1950s.

But upstairs high in the roof space at one end of the building was all that remained of the plaster mouldings which stood above the cinema screen.*

Palais de Luxe, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1924

Of course such finds are increasingly rare and most of us are now forced back on those old photographs and picture postcards.

These are themselves not always readily available.  Some are stored in local history collections and others appear picture books.

There is a fine collection in the book Eltham In Old Photographs.**

And one in particular caught my eye of that part of Court Yard now dominated Grove Market Place.

I say dominated but that is not completely accurate because the small shopping area is undergoing redevelopment and it was while reading about the controversy surrounding the plans that I realized I had no idea when it was built.

There on page 78 as the answer.  It was opened in 1967 and once again I realized that another bit of Eltham’s history had passed me by.

I have either forgotten or was totally oblivious to the demolition of the old properties and building of the Market Place.

This is all the more appalling when within two years I was using the bank on the corner and for years after Dad went to the shop opposite for his paint.

All of which reinforces that simple rule, never take anything for granted, watch for the news of a new planning application and always have a camera with you.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, Holmfirth Picturedrome and interior of the old Palase de Luxe Chorlton from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/forgotten-photograph-palais-de-luxe-in.html

** Eltham In Old Photographs, John Kennet, 1991, Alan Sutton Publishing

Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

Walking down Kender Street looking for the cocoa works and finding a lost cinema

It will be something well over half a century since I last walked down Kender Street and even now it’s the smell of cocoa which is the first thing that comes to mind.

Kender Street, 1872

We lived at number 14 for about a year and a bit back in 1950 into ‘51 and for most of that decade and into the next we regularly  went back to visit one of mum’s friends.

And Kender Street was also one of those alternate routes from Lausanne Road up to the public library on New Cross Road, the wool shop and mum’s other favourite haunt the private lending library.

Now I went looking for all those places recently and of course the passage of fifty five years has not been kind to my child hood memories.  The cocoa works along with number 14 and a big chunk of the street have gone as have the library, the wool shop and much else.

And so comprehensive has the change been that I did begin to question just how much I remembered.

Undaunted I turned to a set of historical maps running from 1872 till 1954.

Most are online courtesy of Southwark Council* and they offer a pretty neat picture of the area over 80 or so years.

Now I couldn’t confirm the cocoa plant but I was struck by the number of industrial units ranging from a print works, and iron works to a cooperage and engineering plant.  Most were developed in the years after 1872 and plenty of them were still there around Kender Street and Pomeroy Street in the early 1950s.

Of course having spent years living in east Manchester which retained its heavy industry until the 1980s and only saw the colliery close in 1968 I shouldn’t have been surprised.

What I did find fascinating was the lost cinema on Queens Road which I only discovered from one of those old maps.**

This was the Ideal Cinema House which stood between Kender Street and Pomeroy Street.

It had opened in 1914 as the Queens’ Cinema House, changed its name a year later to the Queens’s Road Cinema and in 1916 was renamed again the Ideal Kinema and when it was bought by Naborhood Theatres Ltd around 1935 becoming the  Narborhood Cinema.

And there in its 790 seat theatre audiences could have thrilled to Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and enthralled at the first talkies.

Alas it’s time as the Narborhood were numbered.  It was destroyed by German bombs in 1940 and the remains demolished the following year which I suspect was why I knew nothing of its existence.

All of which just points to that simple observation that if you want to revisit your childhood, best do it with some maps, and the odd history book.

Of course there may be someone who has a picture of the old cinema and even of the cocoa plant, and may be even the Eno’s Fruit Salt Works on Pomeroy Street whose wall also backed on to the gaden of nu 14 Kender Street.

Now that would be something.

And to confirm that memory, Margaret Nash commented, "That brings back memories. My two brothers used to work at the cooper age in Pomeroy Street, it was called Bennet's and I think made barrels.  As kids we used to hang around the cocoa factory until someone came out and gave us some cocoa which we mixed with some sugar and made a dip".

Now I winder why I didn't think of that!

Picture; Kender Street !872, from the OS for London 1872, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

* Southwark Historical mapping
http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&search=26%20LAUSANNE%20ROAD%20SE15%202HU


**Naborhood Cinema, 277-281 Queen's Road, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/31141

Pictures from an Eltham bus ........ no.24 ....... the cinema

The top deck of a London bus has to be a pretty neat way of seeing the world below.

Almost finished, 2018

And when it is the same bus at about the same time every day, then you have got yourself a project.

All you need is a camera, and the patience each week to record the same spot, and the rest as they say is Larissa Hamment’s “Pictures from an Eltham bus”.*

In the case of our new cinema, Larissa has been recording the story from before the old Co-op building came down, and has covered its demolition, the clearing of the site and the slow rise of the new picture house, our first for decades.

Back in 2017

Now what I like about todays picture, is that amongst the early morning commuters, she has captured Greggs, open for business, poking out from the edge of the development.

Those, who like me left Eltham a long time ago, will be intrigued by the return of a picture house.

I remember all three from the ABC, to the Eltham Hill Gaumont which was the Odeon and of course my favourite, the one by the roundabout in Well Hall.

I have memories of what I went to see at each and which girl friend I accompanied too all of them.

 Eltham Cinema, 1913

But there was an earlier cinema which was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.”

During the winter of 1913 had been around  I might well have decided to take myself off to where I could have seen epics like the Battle of Waterloo, stories drawn from great novels like Zola’s Germinal or melodramas loosely based on the Old Testament along with documentaries about nature, disasters at sea and much more.

The Battle of Waterloo, 1913

Its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.

A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.

He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

Before the new cinema, 2016

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937”.

So we have a rich inheritance of silver screens, which will soon be back.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; the new cinema, 2018, and earlier in 2016-7 from the collection Larissa Hamment, Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and screenshot from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914,

*Pictures from an Eltham bus, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Pictures%20from%20an%20Eltham%20Bus


**Eltham's cinemas, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Eltham%27s%20Cinemas

***Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

The day I went to Brockley looking for a water trough and found a cinema

Now I like the way you start off on a story and end up discovering all sorts of things you never knew.

The Brockley Barge, 2008

So in my quest for water troughs across south east London I have had lots of people share their memories of ones they remember.

And yesterday Margaret Nash wrote that “I haven't thought about horse troughs for years but after your post it bought back memories of a very foggy evening in the early 50's. 

It was a real pea souper and I had a boyfriend who had a car, we were on our way to see friends at Honor Oak. 

As we slowly drove along Brockley Road we came up behind a vehicle so stopped for what seemed ages until my boyfriend got out to see what the long hold up was, only to come back to tell me we were parked behind a horse trough. 

It was at a point in Brockley Road where the road divides off to the right into what is now Foxbury Road. 

I wondered if my mind was playing tricks but googled street view and the horse trough isn't there anymore but a pub called the Brockley Barge stands where the road divides.”

And that was a challenge I couldn’t turn down and went looking for the pub and the site of the trough.

The Brockley Barge turned out to be the old Breakspear Arms which had opened in 1868 and was renamed in 2000 when it became a Wetherspoons, and according to that wonderful site London Pubology has appeared in the Good Pub Guide for six years.*

Having found the pub I found the water trough.  It stood just in front of The Breakspear and is there on the OS map for 1896 and was still there in 1952.

The pub, the cinema and the water trough, 1952

For those who want an exact date for when it was placed there I can’t offer one up although I do know it will have been sometime after 1872.

Nor do I know when it was declared obsolete and taken away, but at least we found it just where Margret left it, and although she never mentioned it the trough faced a cinema which I had no idea ever existed.

This was the Brockley Picture Theatre which opened its doors on September 27 1913 and underwent several name changes over the next 43 years.

According to Mr Ken Roe “It was re-named Palladium Cinema from 24th May 1915.

The Ritz, date unknown 

In 1929 it was under new independent ownership and had a change of name to Giralda Cinema. 

This only lasted until 1936 when it was closed on 2nd November 1936 for renovation. 

It re-opened as the New Palladium Cinema. By the 25th May 1942, it had been re-named Ritz Cinema.

The Ritz Cinema was closed on 14th March 1956 with Charles Drake in 'Tobor the Great' and John Derek in 'The Fortune Hunter'(The Outcast). It was demolished in April 1960 and the site was re-developed. In 2009 an MOT car testing centre and garage is located on the site.”**

And now the MOT centre has gone and the site is underdevelopment again.

Looking at the maps and comparing with an old photograph it was a big place with a 40 feet wide proscenium and a 16 feet deep stage and a massive entrance.

I had wondered why the place didn’t ring any bells but I would not have ventured into Brockley until the early 1960s by which time the cinema had gone and with it perhaps that water trough.

Pictures; Brockley Barge, July 2008 courtesy of London Pubology, and that water trough and detail of St Mary’s Road 1953 historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group and picture of the Ritz by courtesy of Martin Tapsell from the Ritz Cinema, Ken Roe, cinematreasures,


* London Pubology, http://www.pubology.co.uk/pubs/215.html
**Ritz Cinema, Ken Roe, cinematreasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/27905

What should we do with the old buildings of Eltham?

The Well Hall Odeon in 1936

It is 80 years since the Well Hall Odeon opened and maybe 48 years since I last saw a film there.

And for a long time the place has sat empty and forlorn with an uncertain future.

It was the boldest of our cinemas, grander than the ABC in the High Street and more fun to be in than that other one on the hill.

Now I know some people are less than pleased with its current use and this does raise that interesting debate about what should happen to an old and much loved building.

Ideally of course it should continue doing what it did but that isn’t always an option.

Our own old school house on the village green languished empty for years before a property developer transformed into four homes, and across the city textile mills with a history dating back to the early 19th century have been saved by being given a new use.

Sometimes it works well, while in a few cases you do have to reserve judgement.

The 1830 warehouse and replica of the Planet, 2004

Such was the fate of the 1830 warehouse which was part of the Liverpool Road Railway Station complex.

Back in 1830 this was the eastern end of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which was the first passenger railway in the world.

When the site became the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology part of the inside of the warehouse was dramatically altered to allow exhibits from an old power station to be displayed there.

But as if to make up for what was a pretty ruthless act of vandalism the remainder of this unique early railway building has been preserved.

So could anything else have been done with my old cinema?

I shall sit back and await the debate, which is more than just an argument about one building in Well Hall but begs the question of what should happen to any of those iconic and respected buildings in Eltham.

I am up for accepting almost any changes although I do feel uneasy at how certain fast food outlets and supermarkets have settled down in some of the places I knew as a child.

And the old cinema today in 2014

But then the alternative may be demolition which was the fate of the Welcome Inn, a place where I first saw a colour TV transmission.

Not that either me being in there or that it was one of the first places in Eltham to show a BBC 2 colour programme warranted it’s preservation.

But it was a little bit of our history, one I remember fondly.

That said there will be those who mutter “sentimental tosh.”

The Victorians and even the planners of the mid 20th century along with private developers had no such quibbles about tearing down and building a fresh.

Still, glad that the Odeon is not a car park or worse

Location; Well Hall, Eltham .

Pictures; of the Well Hall Odeon in 1936 and today courtesy of Chrissie Rose, picture of the 1830 warehouse from the collection of Andrew Simpson

No babes in arms just bug sprays and exciting films ....................... Lydia remembers the Ideal cinema on Queens Road

Now I am back with the Ideal Cinema which stood on Queens Road midway between Pomeroy Street and Kender Street.

The Ideal Cinema 1914-1940

It had opened in 1914 as the Queens’ Cinema House, changed its name a year later to the Queens’s Road Cinema and in 1916 was renamed again as the Ideal Kinema.

Then around 1935 it was bought by Naborhood Theatres Ltd around 1935 and became the  Narborhood Cinema.

And there in its 790 seat theatre audiences could have thrilled to Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and been enthralled at the first talkies.

Alas it’s time as the Narborhood were numbered.  It was destroyed by German bombs in 1940 and the remains demolished the following year which I suspect was why I knew nothing of its.

That said there are people who remember attending the place in the 1930s.

One of these is Lydia Bush who told me that "the Ideal Cinema was on the main road, on the left side going towards New Cross, with the pub was on the corner.

Tom Mix, 1925

It was a small cinema with one level, no balcony, I remember on the other side was a small barbers.

I think it may have been privately owned, and based on an American style.

I went to one in the States just like the Ideal , and that really brought back memories.

It changed the film on Thursday, but in those days cinemas didn't open on Sunday.

I remember a sign on the small box office which said 'No babes in arms!'

They came round with a spray occasionally, I used to think it was perfume!

But it was probably bug spray!

I saw many films there, mum was a film fan, I think she must have kept it going.

Hated the walk home though.”

Now that bug spray was not peculiar to the Ideal, and talking to people across the country they not only remembered the practise but singled out certain picture houses as “flea pits” and “bug havens” where you went at your peril.

And likewise many of them continued to refer to the cinema of their choice with names that long ago had been changed .

So for Lydia our cinema will always be the Ideal and in that she was not alone, because maps of the 1930s and 40s still referred to it by its pre 1935 name.  In fact the updated map of the area in 1953 continued to show the cinema which had long ago shown its last film and seen its last bug spray.

So there you have it ............ in the space of a few days the Ideal has offered up more of its story.

All we need now is a picture.

Pictures; the Ideal cinema and Queens Road, 1953 from historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group,  Tom Mix, May 21 1925, Wikipedia Commons, this work has been released into the public domain by its author, Herbert A. French, who grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

This story first appeared in 2015

The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 16 ........ Saturday Morning Pictures at the ABC Regal and Gaumont

The story of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*

Saturday Morning Badge 

You never quite forget that mix of noise and anticipation which was Saturday Morning Pictures.

It started when the manager asked if everyone was happy, continued into the competitions and lasted through most of the morning.

It is easy to over romanticise what was just another way the cinema chain could create more revenue while introducing a young audience to the magic of the big screen.

And once you were hooked you were hooked for life.  The cycle might begin with Saturday Morning

Pictures but quickly moved on to the “date” on the back row and in the fullness of time to visits with your children to Disney and of course to Saturday mornings all over again this time dropping off and collecting a new generation of Saturday children.

But you can also be over cynical even given that what you saw was pretty dire.

I can’t say I ever enjoyed those stories of daring do by young children or the equally improbable tales of faithful dogs and intelligent dolphins saving the day.

The Thunder Guard, from the Phantom Empire, 1935

I do remember a series which mixed the theme of Ancient Rome, alien invaders and a particularly nasty dictator.

On reflection it was probably shot on a back lot using B actors and involved lots of oddly dressed men riding on horseback across dusty plains.

You knew it was cheap because the plot didn’t follow a logical path and events often passed from bright daylight to late afternoon and back again in the course of one horse race.

All that said they were fun.

There were the cartoons and films, along with live events ranging from talent competitions and fancy dress to the appearance of a well known celebrity and it was always someone’s birthday which was met with a loud shout.

I am not sure whether it would still work today but from the 1940s into the 60s they were a way of life for many children with that added advantage that it freed up time for the adults.

In the 1950’s the average weekly attendance at  children’s cinema matinees was over 1,016,000 with 1735 cinemas holding cinema matinees for children.

The ABC chain began a special club in the 1940s for their ABC Minors complete with badge and song and birthday cards.

We on the other hand went to the Gaumont which I am sure also had a song a badge and much more, the trouble is I just don’t remember.

ABC Minors happy Birthday

Later when I was that tad bit older for reasons I can’t explain I ended up at the ABC Regal on the Old Kent Road sandwiched between Leo Street and Gervase Street.**

It had opened in 1937 as The Regal and was the largest of ABC’s London surburban cinemas, but was smaller than the Astoria nearby.

And it was there that I saw those epic sword and sandal films which seemed to always feature Steve Reeves with a clutch load of feeble plots but full of action and dignified young woman in classical dress.

Of course the cinema has gone as has the Astoria, and the Gaumont.  The first was the Astoria which closed in 1968 followed by the ABC and the Gaumont.

By then my Saturday Morning Cinema days were over.  But within a few years I was back this time as a dad fulfilling that cycle of the cinema goer but in the meantime the grand palaces of make believe had given over to the functional but ugly multi complex and somewhere along the way a little of the old magic was lost.

And for those who want to judge for themselves, just follow the link to what you could have enjoyed.***

Pictures, ABC Minors Badge, ABC Minors children’s cinema postcard Happy Birthday, 1948, BD084660, University of Essex, http://collections.ex.ac.uk/repository/handle/10472/3222?show=full and Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/video/abc-minors-matinee

*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road

**ABC Old Kent Road, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/31124#

*** Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/video/abc-minors-matinee