Avenue Cinema
Royal Avenue and Garfield Street,
Belfast,
BT1 1DD
Royal Avenue and Garfield Street,
Belfast,
BT1 1DD
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Continuing with super cinemas which didn’t happen. In July 1946 it was reported that Rank had acquired the Picture House in Royal Avenue and adjoining property so a 5,000-seater cinema (the largest in the UK!), ballroom and café could be erected. A sum of £600,000 was said to be involved in the project. In August the same year, Kine Weekly gave the seating capacity as 3,000. However, the deal was not completed; reasons must surely have included post-WW2 restrictions on new building construction.
In March 1947 Curran Theatres acquired the Picture House; it was the local chain’s first incursion into the city centre. It’s been suggested that Curran’s subsequent refit, renovation and rebranding as the Regent was but stage 1 of a project which would eventually lead to demolishing the building and replacing it with a 3,000-seater. Stage 2, however, did not happen.
Frustrated with the lack of progress over the Picture House site, Rank cast its eye over other city centre sites. In 1948 planners, apparently, gave them permission to build a 3,000-seater cinema on an unnamed bomb-damaged site; this report proved to be unfounded. Nevertheless, in 1954 the Belfast Telegraph reported that construction of a 1,750-seater in Fountain Street (same site as 1948?) would commence in the autumn. This didn’t happen either! (Sources include ‘Cinemas and Cinema-Going in the United Kingdom Decades in Decline, 1945-65’ by Sam Manning, 2020 and ‘Standing Room Only’ by James Doherty, 1997.)
During the mid-1950s Rank’s acquisitions of the two leading local chains, Curran and Irish Theatres, changed their perspective on super-cinemas in the city centre. Instead of turning their attention back to the Picture House (by then the Regent) site, at the start of the Sixties Rank bought the Hippodrome and Grand Opera House which sat side-by-side in Great Victoria Street. These were turned into their flagship venues in the city centre. The outcome was that the Regent was, to some extent, sidelined. That said, they did spend money on it and changed its name to the Avenue in 1965.
Following-up on the last Comment, Irish film historian and writer Kevin Rockett said that Paramount’s attempt to enter the Belfast market in 1931 was unsuccessful. He quoted from a press report stating that its proposed super cinema was postponed due to the economic depression. Rockett didn’t give any details about the intended site and so it’s unclear if this was the same plan he was referring to in the following paragraph.
Rockett also writes that Paramount seemed to have become involved with the Picture House in Royal Avenue, with a view to erecting a super cinema there; this development would stretch onto an adjacent site. Progress on this plan was postponed. (Source: ‘Film Exhibition and Distribution in Ireland, 1909 - 2010’ by Kevin Rockett, Four Courts Press, 2011).
Further back, on 19 May 1925, the Belfast Telegraph, in a brief report, said that the Grand Central Hotel (the city’s premier hotel, which was close by the Picture House) was to be turned into a super cinema and restaurant. Nothing further came of that.
In 1931, Francis Thomas Verity (to give him his full name) drew up plans, or acted as consultant for “Designs (or consultant for) ‘super cinema’ (probably a refurbishment of the Belfast Picture House, for which see Marcus Patton, |Central Belfast: an historical gazetteer|” taken from the notes on Ireland’s Architects.
Belfast City Council has given the green light for a new multiplex cinema, entertainment and retail complex on the 120,00 sq ft site formerly occupied by Catsle Court’s anchor store Debenham’s, which closed in 2021. The 9 luxury screens alongside a licenced bar would be operated by Omniplex, Ireland’s largest cinema chain, using its new luxury cinema brand, The Avenue. It’s no coincidence that is also the site where the original Avenue cinema (closed 1982) stood on. The new cinema is scheduled to open in December 2022.
Closed 23 October 1982
The Picture House was opened on 19 June 1911 by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres Ltd (PCT). Due, possibly, to the civil unrest in the city in the early 1920s, PCT pulled out (in 1922) and the cinema was taken over by the building’s landlords, who formed a company called Northern Theatres to run it. In 1965 Rank undertook a complete modernisation of the cinema which included the installation of the most up-to-date projection equipment (to bring it up to ‘London West End standards’). Rank also changed its name to the Avenue (its nickname but never its official name) from 7 June 1965. In 1974 Rank pulled out of Northern Ireland and a local operator (Belfast Cinemas Ltd) took over; it retained the Avenue name until the cinemas eventual closure.