Palace Cinema

Located in the southeast London district of Deptford, on the corner of Deptford High Street and Hyde Street. The Deptford Electric Palace opened on 24th December 1910. The front entrance was created out of an existing building, which had most likely previously been a shop. The auditorium seating 625, was built at the rear, along Hyde Street. In late-1912, the auditorium was extended in an unusual way, with the cheap seats at the screen end, as well as being in the main body of the hall, were also now in an annex to the side of the main building, thus giving those sitting on the extreme front side seats an extremely distorted view of the screen.

Tragedy struck during a childrens matinee performance on 28th April 1917 when a false alarm of ‘Fire’ sent an over capacity crowd of 1,007 in panic towards the exits. After order had been established, the bodies of four children were found crushed to death.

In 1945, it was re-named Palace Cinema. Always independently operated, the Palace Cinema was closed on 18th December 1954 with Charles Starrett(The Durango Kid) in “The Lone Hand” and Mikel Conrad in “Untamed Women”.

After sitting empty and ‘For Sale for a while, it was converted into a supermarket. But this was only to last until the early-1960’s when it became a bingo club. In 1989, it was converted into a snooker club, which remains open in 2009 as Shades Snooker & Pool Club.

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