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.
Greetings JMBrighton. I cannot get into your website from here. Have tried many times.It seems to be blocked at this end. Perhaps you could put the photograph you wish me to see onto Flicka? That site is not blocked and available to me.
The owner of this cinema in the 1960s was a Mr.Morgan. He also did most of the projecting.
During the 1970s building was given over to the Dragonbeat night club and later to Wheelers night club.
The building then became a Kwiksave store. After Kwiksave was taken over by Somerfield the store was renamed as such.
In the late 1940s- early 1950s I visited this hall , mainly on Friday or Saturday nights, with various members my family.I can readily recall my maternal grandmother (1881-1968) telling me that this was not the first cinema to exist on this site.
She often talked about a small Bioscope hall that existed on the Castle Cinema site from around 1903.The entrance was apparently in Worcester Place. Her story went on to relate that the Bioscope Cinema was demolished some time around 1911 and replaced by the present Castle Cinema circa 1912. I would be please to hear from any Swansea cinema buff who can confirm confirm this fact?
If my memory serves me right? The Castle Cinema was purchased by the Caerphilly Miner’s Institute sometime round about 1958. Before 1958 booking were made from an office in Cardiff. Post 1958 bookings were made for both the Workman’s Hall and the Castle from an office at the Castle itself.
I can recall the Empire Cinema quite well. It stood on a corner that was close to the roundabout where the famous Houses of Parliament stood. The Parliament being the largest set of public toilets in the Rhondda Valley. Porth being more famous for its Parliament than its coal mining.
The narrow entrance to the hall was in Pontypridd Road opposite the Maerdy direction Western Welsh bus stop. The sign over the hall was a simple board bearing the name Empire Cinema and lit by a small flood light.
I can remember. many years ago, being told that in the days of silent films, there was a Grand Cinema in Porth. I am therefore wondering if the Empire is actually a reincarnation of the vanished Grand?
When I was at school in the late 1940’s , early 1950s Maxine was a very common name for girls. I knew quite a few Maxines. On the other hand Maxime was not a common word – therefore it is more than likely that local people unconsciously substituted the name Maxine, during their conversations, for a name that they were unfamiliar with and therefore not in the habit of using.
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.
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.
Greetings, I never actually met A. Jackson Withers but I did several times get a sight of him. During my time at Warner Pathe he attended several of their promotional receptions. These took the form of lunches at either the Royal or the Park hotels to which anyone with a booking ability, from miner’s welfare hall secretaries to the likes of the bigger circuit operators,were invited. My tasks at these lunches was handing out promotional material as the guests left. At that time he was just another name to me.I later realised that he was the king pin of South Wales Cinemas but never saw him again once I’d taken up itinerant projecting.
The attraction of keeping the Sunday outrun print till Thursday, was mainly that of an insurance issue. If the booked Monday feature failed to arrive for any reason (extreme weather, theft, or damage by a previous user making the print unusable) then at least you had something to present on the Monday if you could not get your next feature delivered on time. I can remember once getting a copy of “Only Two Can Play” that was heavily sprocketed. The consequence was that we played “House of Wax” on the Monday whilst awaiting an emergency delivery of a viable print, sent by train from London, to be delivered in time for Tuesday’s presentation, at the renter’s cost.
Most second and third run halls, outside of the Cardiff and Swansea halls, ran split weekly programmes with the changeover being on a Thursday and a Monday. FTS normally called at the halls during the early hours of Thursday and Monday mornings. Thus it was not possible for these halls to run a main feature on a Sunday without heavy extra transport costs. The normal Sunday policy was for a cinema to rent an out run feature that was of interest to a particular group. For example horror films always attracted quantities of young, over eighteen couples whilst comedies were attractive to families. Out of run features had the advantage of being rented at a fixed (usually low) rate and did not have to be returned to the vaults within twenty-four hours of final showing. This meant that a one off Sunday use print could be returned via FTS the following Thursday morning.
I cannot remember precisely the exact Sunday routine that was operated by the Maxine. The last time I was there was in 1962. However, I can comment generally about Sunday cinema. In most Welsh towns, at that time ,cinemas were allowed to operate between 1630 and 2130 hours on Sundays. In many some towns the showing of X rated material was banned on that day. Therefore halls had to find a five hour programme that filled the available time slot. Most of the Cardiff city centre halls showed their normal programmes and only adjusted the programmes if they had a week with an X film in the programme.
The problem may be that I am living in Uzbekistan. It is not unusual for web links to fail here. I will try again later this evening.
I put some comments about neons on the Cardiff Regent entry. They may be of interest to you.
I tried to enter your website but got informed that the server could not be contacted.
In the early 1960s there were at least four women working regularly in South Wales boxes who were known to me. It was not really a masculine world. I kept getting asked out for dates but these were very difficult to arrange. Usually because I was covering for the day off of the projectionist who was actually inviting me for the date. As a jobberI tended to work six, or even seven days a week, if I could get extra work on a Sunday. The Sabbath working was always at double pay.
Both the Withers management and their projectionists favoured Peerless Arcs for two differing reasons. As far as management was concerned the Peerless arcs gave a better light and were lighter consumers of carbon rods than the Kalees. In normal use you could usually get five reels out of a negative rod and three reels out of a positive rod. The arcs were also easy to maintain – the mirror just needing a bit of de spattering each day and a wipe over with Windolene. The dowsers were two sided which meant that the operator on the number 1 machine could dowse the light whilst the number two machine’s operator raised or lowered the lights and drapes.
One of the operating perks of working in a Peerless equipped boxwas that the waste copper from the rods was collected in a tray. Projectionists carefully hoarded this copper and every so often it was sold off to a scrap dealer.
The Peerless arks could be controlled from the side, by left and right hand feed knobs, so that the projectionist could easily look at the screen and at the arc rod. Striking up an arc was very easy.
Kalees on the other hand had the controls on a two wheel (one rod) system that was not so easy to strike or check.
The Withers Circuit had a preference for Westrex and Westar heads and Peerless Magna Arcs.A few of the larger cinemas were later fitted with Kalee 18s purchased from closed down (non Withers operated) halls.
If the photograph you mention are of the last two Kalee Regal equipped boxes. Then identification of the box should be easy.
The Ninian had its two machine located in a pit and the rectifiers located on a higher step behind. The Globe had its two machines on a level with the RCA box on the wall between the two machines.
Following the coming of cinemascope. all of the Cardiff Withers halls, apart from the Ninian, were upgraded by 1961
The other cinema operating complete Kalee sets in 1964 was the Globe in Wellfield Road. The hall contained two Kalee Regal Mk2s with Kalee 12 heads and an RCA sound kit that I would think dated from the late 1930s. However I cannot be sure about the dating of this RCA kit.
Whenever parts gave out on this ancient equipment, spare parts were purloined or removed from machines in the other Willis halls that had gone over to bingo or had closed down. The Canton Coliseum was a regular donor in this respect. It is for this reason that I’m sure the Coliseum never went back to films once it went over to full time bingo circa 1961.
As far as I can recall (I am now in my 70th year) by 1964 there were only two Cardiff halls operating Kalee sets.
The Ninian had a pair of Kalee Regal Mk1 arcs with Kalee 12 heads. The Ninian was notorious for its limited box space and tiny ports. It would have been well nigh impossible to have fitted Peerless Arcs into what was referred to by projectionists as the Nin Pit. I believe that it was for this reason that the Jackson Withers Circuit never upgraded the Ninian box equipment. I would add that the Ninian had a short throw and that the Kalee Arcs were entirely fit for purpose.
I still possess a Cardiff Cinemas pay advice from 1961 . I was paid three pounds and ten shillings (after tax) for a Thursday, Friday and Saturday relief session at the Ninian. The document gives the wages office address as Windsor Place, Cardiff.
Legend has it that this cinema was managed by the parents of Sir Julian Hodge before the First World War. It has been said that he helped his parents with the business and that this gave him his later interest in cinemas which led to him becoming the managing director of the Jackson Withers Circuit.
The building still exists, it has occupied by a flourishing upholstery firm for many years.
Although Julian Hodge was indeed the managing director of the Jackson Withers circuit he seemed to have a very remote connection with the day to day operation of the business. He was a name we had all heard of but with whom we never came in contact with and never ever saw.
The day to day managing of the circuit was mainly by written edicts to the individual hall managers and their supervisors. The last Cardiff area supervisor I had any contact with was Dai John who also managed the Plaza in North Road. I only took up projecting in 1960 after I quit my office job with Warner Pathe. At that time the Jackson Withers circuit had an office in St. Andrews Crescent
almost opposite St. Andrews Church. If the Jackson Withers circuit had a booking office in Bargoed? Then I was never aware that fact whilst I was with Warner Pathe.
I later did several stints at the Hanbury and also during that time no mention of a head office at Bargoed was ever made to me. In the early 60s the main management gentleman was a Mr. Henry Ponkin who was better known to hall staff as “Nero”. He got his name after having severe problems with a white sheet at a toga party. This disaster was photographed and the pictures were to be found in many Withers operating boxes for years afterwards.
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.
Greetings JMBrighton. I cannot get into your website from here. Have tried many times.It seems to be blocked at this end. Perhaps you could put the photograph you wish me to see onto Flicka? That site is not blocked and available to me.
The owner of this cinema in the 1960s was a Mr.Morgan. He also did most of the projecting.
During the 1970s building was given over to the Dragonbeat night club and later to Wheelers night club.
The building then became a Kwiksave store. After Kwiksave was taken over by Somerfield the store was renamed as such.
In the late 1940s- early 1950s I visited this hall , mainly on Friday or Saturday nights, with various members my family.I can readily recall my maternal grandmother (1881-1968) telling me that this was not the first cinema to exist on this site.
She often talked about a small Bioscope hall that existed on the Castle Cinema site from around 1903.The entrance was apparently in Worcester Place. Her story went on to relate that the Bioscope Cinema was demolished some time around 1911 and replaced by the present Castle Cinema circa 1912. I would be please to hear from any Swansea cinema buff who can confirm confirm this fact?
If my memory serves me right? The Castle Cinema was purchased by the Caerphilly Miner’s Institute sometime round about 1958. Before 1958 booking were made from an office in Cardiff. Post 1958 bookings were made for both the Workman’s Hall and the Castle from an office at the Castle itself.
I can recall the Empire Cinema quite well. It stood on a corner that was close to the roundabout where the famous Houses of Parliament stood. The Parliament being the largest set of public toilets in the Rhondda Valley. Porth being more famous for its Parliament than its coal mining.
The narrow entrance to the hall was in Pontypridd Road opposite the Maerdy direction Western Welsh bus stop. The sign over the hall was a simple board bearing the name Empire Cinema and lit by a small flood light.
I can remember. many years ago, being told that in the days of silent films, there was a Grand Cinema in Porth. I am therefore wondering if the Empire is actually a reincarnation of the vanished Grand?
When I was at school in the late 1940’s , early 1950s Maxine was a very common name for girls. I knew quite a few Maxines. On the other hand Maxime was not a common word – therefore it is more than likely that local people unconsciously substituted the name Maxine, during their conversations, for a name that they were unfamiliar with and therefore not in the habit of using.
Sorry cannot help – the first time that I ever heard of Max Corne was on this website.
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.
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.
Greetings, I never actually met A. Jackson Withers but I did several times get a sight of him. During my time at Warner Pathe he attended several of their promotional receptions. These took the form of lunches at either the Royal or the Park hotels to which anyone with a booking ability, from miner’s welfare hall secretaries to the likes of the bigger circuit operators,were invited. My tasks at these lunches was handing out promotional material as the guests left. At that time he was just another name to me.I later realised that he was the king pin of South Wales Cinemas but never saw him again once I’d taken up itinerant projecting.
The attraction of keeping the Sunday outrun print till Thursday, was mainly that of an insurance issue. If the booked Monday feature failed to arrive for any reason (extreme weather, theft, or damage by a previous user making the print unusable) then at least you had something to present on the Monday if you could not get your next feature delivered on time. I can remember once getting a copy of “Only Two Can Play” that was heavily sprocketed. The consequence was that we played “House of Wax” on the Monday whilst awaiting an emergency delivery of a viable print, sent by train from London, to be delivered in time for Tuesday’s presentation, at the renter’s cost.
Most second and third run halls, outside of the Cardiff and Swansea halls, ran split weekly programmes with the changeover being on a Thursday and a Monday. FTS normally called at the halls during the early hours of Thursday and Monday mornings. Thus it was not possible for these halls to run a main feature on a Sunday without heavy extra transport costs. The normal Sunday policy was for a cinema to rent an out run feature that was of interest to a particular group. For example horror films always attracted quantities of young, over eighteen couples whilst comedies were attractive to families. Out of run features had the advantage of being rented at a fixed (usually low) rate and did not have to be returned to the vaults within twenty-four hours of final showing. This meant that a one off Sunday use print could be returned via FTS the following Thursday morning.
I cannot remember precisely the exact Sunday routine that was operated by the Maxine. The last time I was there was in 1962. However, I can comment generally about Sunday cinema. In most Welsh towns, at that time ,cinemas were allowed to operate between 1630 and 2130 hours on Sundays. In many some towns the showing of X rated material was banned on that day. Therefore halls had to find a five hour programme that filled the available time slot. Most of the Cardiff city centre halls showed their normal programmes and only adjusted the programmes if they had a week with an X film in the programme.
Greetings,
The problem may be that I am living in Uzbekistan. It is not unusual for web links to fail here. I will try again later this evening.
I put some comments about neons on the Cardiff Regent entry. They may be of interest to you.
I tried to enter your website but got informed that the server could not be contacted.
In the early 1960s there were at least four women working regularly in South Wales boxes who were known to me. It was not really a masculine world. I kept getting asked out for dates but these were very difficult to arrange. Usually because I was covering for the day off of the projectionist who was actually inviting me for the date. As a jobberI tended to work six, or even seven days a week, if I could get extra work on a Sunday. The Sabbath working was always at double pay.
Both the Withers management and their projectionists favoured Peerless Arcs for two differing reasons. As far as management was concerned the Peerless arcs gave a better light and were lighter consumers of carbon rods than the Kalees. In normal use you could usually get five reels out of a negative rod and three reels out of a positive rod. The arcs were also easy to maintain – the mirror just needing a bit of de spattering each day and a wipe over with Windolene. The dowsers were two sided which meant that the operator on the number 1 machine could dowse the light whilst the number two machine’s operator raised or lowered the lights and drapes.
One of the operating perks of working in a Peerless equipped boxwas that the waste copper from the rods was collected in a tray. Projectionists carefully hoarded this copper and every so often it was sold off to a scrap dealer.
The Peerless arks could be controlled from the side, by left and right hand feed knobs, so that the projectionist could easily look at the screen and at the arc rod. Striking up an arc was very easy.
Kalees on the other hand had the controls on a two wheel (one rod) system that was not so easy to strike or check.
The Withers Circuit had a preference for Westrex and Westar heads and Peerless Magna Arcs.A few of the larger cinemas were later fitted with Kalee 18s purchased from closed down (non Withers operated) halls.
If the photograph you mention are of the last two Kalee Regal equipped boxes. Then identification of the box should be easy.
The Ninian had its two machine located in a pit and the rectifiers located on a higher step behind. The Globe had its two machines on a level with the RCA box on the wall between the two machines.
Following the coming of cinemascope. all of the Cardiff Withers halls, apart from the Ninian, were upgraded by 1961
The other cinema operating complete Kalee sets in 1964 was the Globe in Wellfield Road. The hall contained two Kalee Regal Mk2s with Kalee 12 heads and an RCA sound kit that I would think dated from the late 1930s. However I cannot be sure about the dating of this RCA kit.
Whenever parts gave out on this ancient equipment, spare parts were purloined or removed from machines in the other Willis halls that had gone over to bingo or had closed down. The Canton Coliseum was a regular donor in this respect. It is for this reason that I’m sure the Coliseum never went back to films once it went over to full time bingo circa 1961.
As far as I can recall (I am now in my 70th year) by 1964 there were only two Cardiff halls operating Kalee sets.
The Ninian had a pair of Kalee Regal Mk1 arcs with Kalee 12 heads. The Ninian was notorious for its limited box space and tiny ports. It would have been well nigh impossible to have fitted Peerless Arcs into what was referred to by projectionists as the Nin Pit. I believe that it was for this reason that the Jackson Withers Circuit never upgraded the Ninian box equipment. I would add that the Ninian had a short throw and that the Kalee Arcs were entirely fit for purpose.
I still possess a Cardiff Cinemas pay advice from 1961 . I was paid three pounds and ten shillings (after tax) for a Thursday, Friday and Saturday relief session at the Ninian. The document gives the wages office address as Windsor Place, Cardiff.
Legend has it that this cinema was managed by the parents of Sir Julian Hodge before the First World War. It has been said that he helped his parents with the business and that this gave him his later interest in cinemas which led to him becoming the managing director of the Jackson Withers Circuit.
The building still exists, it has occupied by a flourishing upholstery firm for many years.
Today I got my hands on a biography of Sir Julian Hodge who was for many years the managing director of the Jackson Withers circuit.
The book relates that Sir Julian himself was also a director of Howells Store (Cardiff) at the time of the Avenue closure.
Although Julian Hodge was indeed the managing director of the Jackson Withers circuit he seemed to have a very remote connection with the day to day operation of the business. He was a name we had all heard of but with whom we never came in contact with and never ever saw.
The day to day managing of the circuit was mainly by written edicts to the individual hall managers and their supervisors. The last Cardiff area supervisor I had any contact with was Dai John who also managed the Plaza in North Road. I only took up projecting in 1960 after I quit my office job with Warner Pathe. At that time the Jackson Withers circuit had an office in St. Andrews Crescent
almost opposite St. Andrews Church. If the Jackson Withers circuit had a booking office in Bargoed? Then I was never aware that fact whilst I was with Warner Pathe.
I later did several stints at the Hanbury and also during that time no mention of a head office at Bargoed was ever made to me. In the early 60s the main management gentleman was a Mr. Henry Ponkin who was better known to hall staff as “Nero”. He got his name after having severe problems with a white sheet at a toga party. This disaster was photographed and the pictures were to be found in many Withers operating boxes for years afterwards.