Memorial Hall Cinema

Capelmawr on May 4, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Film shows started at this venue in 1925, the year the Memorial Hall was opened, by Captain Pritchard (Real name Elias)After his death the lease on the venue was sold in 1945 to Paramount Picture Theatres Ltd who continued film shows initially with one show per night during the summer months and two shows per night during the winter. However in the mid 1950’s this had changed to one show per night in the summer only. The rent paid was minute – only £150 for the whole summer during 1964 – and it may have been a proposed increase in this that led to Paramount closing the venue in 1970.
A man from Barmouth tried to continue film shows with 16mm equipment, but these proved unsuccessful and the venue reverted to Community based events.

Eric Evans on March 1, 2010 at 2:01 pm

I think the Memorial Hall ceased as a cinema in 1966 but I’m going by memory, so it could have been a little later.

They still had hand fed carbon arcs right to the end,which was quite old fashioned by then,the reason for this was the tiny projection room,these lamps were smaller than the normal auto fed ones of that time.

I remember helping the relief projectionist from the Palladium Pwllheli there one evening in the summer of 1966, the film showing was “Von Ryan’s Express” starring Frank Sinatra.
The cinema at that time was run by the Paramount circuit.Although I only went there out of curiosity on my night off from Pwllheli’s other cinema “The Town Hall”(now Neuadd Dwyfor) he soon had me hand feeding the lamp on No 2 projector,it was not easy to keep the light constant but good fun.