Central Cinema
The Hayes,
Cardiff,
CF10
The Hayes,
Cardiff,
CF10
No one has favorited this theater yet
Originally built as a roller-skating rink in 1909, it was in occasional use as an ‘electric cinema’ in early 1910. It converted into a full time cinema from 7th March 1911 and was controlled by the Andrews family. The hall could seat 1,500 which included some seating in a small balcony.
The hall was entered from a narrow frontage which replaced a small shop and for most of its life provided competitively priced entertainment, usually double-features from distributors back-catalogue in a simply furnished and decorated environment.
Archives have preserved records of the Andrews company. While seating and decoration remained very basic, the Central Cinema was well equipped. In later years it boasted one of the largest CinemaScope screens in the City but disaster struck in the summer of 1958 when a nearby building caught fire and spread to part of the Central.
Immediate steps were taken to organise repairs and on re-opening the Central advertised the latest projection system, understood to be from Kalee. Within a year the Central closed and when demolished in 1961 it revealed the wooden skating floor was still there. Replaced by shops and offices no trace remains, indeed the shops have themselves been demolished to be replaced by, yes, new shops.
Contributed by
Geoff
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
The latest equipment from Kalee is rumoured to have been the much vaunted Projectomatic system. As far as I’m aware it was the only cinema in South Wales that was fitted with this operating device.
Whilst at Warner Pathe I met some of the projectionists who worked at the Central. They were always complaining about the set up at the cinema. For much of the time they used to switch the automatic system off and worked the box manually. I was told the device, which I never saw, had to be set up by inserting pegs into a drum which then revolved and triggered lights, drapes etc. Every time the programme changed it was a nightmare working out where next to put the pegs.They claimed it took longer to solve the peg problem than it did to spool up the prints.
The top reels above the projection heads were fitted with bells that rang when the reel emptied to a prefixed level and a changeover was imminent. The bells being set off as the near emptied reel began to revolve at higher speeds.
Visitors to the new shopping centre in Cardiff in October 2009 may enter at a point very close to where the converted shop that served as the entrance of the Central was located, with the converted skating rink to the left.
The only remaining traces of single-screen cinema in the City Centre are the former theatre buildings that housed the “Pavilion” (currently a closed bar),The Prince of Wales and the much-altered Hippodrome,(both now Wetherspoons).
Six of the suburban cinema buildings survive, at least in part,adapted for other uses.
Greetings, Not having visited Cardiff since 1970, I would be interested to know if the Dominions Arcade vaults are still in use for film storage purposes? When I worked in one of the vault’s ground level offices between 1955 and 1960 the arcade was entirely occupied by film rental companies and commonly referred to as “Little Wardour Street”.
During my time at the vaults, the extensive offices entered at the end of the arcade were occupied by Post Office Telephones. For some years vault staff used to sneak up to the Telephone Office canteen, claim they were telephone staff and get a subsidised meal as a consequence.
There’s no sign of any film-related activity in this area these days.A warehouse in Canton was used for film storage for a time according to a family member who worked in an adjoining building.
Cardboard boxes containing unspooled film seem to travel by van these days, the metal cans seem to be a thing of the past.
Dominions Arcade’s film distribution offices are now used by hairdressers, coffee/sandwich bars,a bank etc. The vaults, if they were accessed from the rear of the building, could well be a parking area, unlike the nearby cellars under the Principality Building, now a busy counter-service cafeteria.
The vaults were accessed for delivery purposes via an entrance located in the lane between the Greyfriars building and Queen Street.The surface delivery area consisted of a loading bay into which one van could half reverse into at a time.At the back of the loading bay was a very heavy duty lift which was used to take the film containers down into the extensive and heavily fireproofed vaults.I very much doubt if the underground area could have been converted into a parking area as the required ramp would have been almost impossible to construct.Films were core spooled in reels of 2000 feet contained in a can. The cans were then placed in steel containers. The largest containers holding six cans were extremely difficult to carry. Only the news reels were packed in cardboard boxes. Balancers came in either two can cases or as single reels in a can which was contained in a ply case. I have put some memories of the vaults onto the listing of the Electric Cinema that formerly stood on the Dominions Arcade site.
According to some of my ex cinema colleagues there are actually seven former suburban cinema buildings surviving (in varied use) in Cardiff. These being :The Splott, Tivoli, Avenue, Ninian, Clifton , Gaiety and Canton.
I had forgotten to count the Clifton, as it closed in 1932 and wasn’t ever a Jackson Withers cinema!( In fact it was a cinema for about 17 years and Woolworths for over 70!) My point was that the city centre cinema buildings have all been totally demolished, while some earlier buildings that became cinemas have survived.The suburban buildings have often found new uses,e.g. the Canton closed 49 years ago and has been a retail unit longer than it was a cinema, even though one of the many built by 1914. In the opposite direction a school that became an arts centre nearby has thrived for approaching 40 years and has two cinemas.Apart from a few photos,perhaps some plans, nothing’s left of many cinemas.
Today I found out how to use Google Earth street View. I looked for the Dominion Arcade film vault’s entrance and actually found it in a street view of Crockherbtown Lane. The entrance is now at the end of very short blind alley. However you can clearly read the words Dominion Arcade and the date.
My Grandmother was manager at the Central for many years. She was well appreciated for getting on well with the local population. At her funeral aged 90 we were all stunned at the arrival of a chauffeur driven Rolls-Royce from which alighted a dapper little old man who sat at the rear of the chapel and said nothing. An Andrews? Who knows? A story fit for the screen?