The building definitely wasn’t entirely closed as a cinema from 1967 because I used to go there to see films on the odd occasion between about 1974 and 1976(it wasn’t my nearest cinema so I only rarely needed to go there to see a particular film.)
It must have been from 1974 onwards because I used to drive there and that was the year I passed my test.
I then left the area in 1976 so have no memory of it closing.
I don’t specifically remember, but I suspect that Star split the cinema into a bingo hall (probably downstairs) with a smaller cinema remaining in the former balcony, as they did with some other smaller cinemas they owned.
The Empire was closed for several months during 1973 while it was converted. It re-opened (I think with Disney’s Robin Hood) with a cinema occupying the balcony and a bingo hall in what was the stalls. The glass and iron canopy which appears in the photograph above was gone by the end of the 1960s. The site is now occupied by Farm Foods.
Like many small local cinemas it often had one double-bill programme running from Monday to Wednesday, and another from Thursday to Saturday. On Sundays there would usually be a one-off double bill, either of Hammer or other horror films but in later days sometimes a pair of soft core films.
The Odeon wasn’t where Boots is now. It was where Bonmarche now stands on the other side of what is now a pedestrian walk but which was at the time a road. The Odeon extended back South down the hill, making use of the natural rake so that the screen was at the end away from the High Street. It backed onto what was then the bus station.
Quite a bit of the derelict Bedford Theatre can also be seen in a short film called “Victorian London”. It turns up periodically in Talking Pictures TV’s “Glimpses” strand.
The building definitely wasn’t entirely closed as a cinema from 1967 because I used to go there to see films on the odd occasion between about 1974 and 1976(it wasn’t my nearest cinema so I only rarely needed to go there to see a particular film.) It must have been from 1974 onwards because I used to drive there and that was the year I passed my test. I then left the area in 1976 so have no memory of it closing. I don’t specifically remember, but I suspect that Star split the cinema into a bingo hall (probably downstairs) with a smaller cinema remaining in the former balcony, as they did with some other smaller cinemas they owned.
The Empire was closed for several months during 1973 while it was converted. It re-opened (I think with Disney’s Robin Hood) with a cinema occupying the balcony and a bingo hall in what was the stalls. The glass and iron canopy which appears in the photograph above was gone by the end of the 1960s. The site is now occupied by Farm Foods. Like many small local cinemas it often had one double-bill programme running from Monday to Wednesday, and another from Thursday to Saturday. On Sundays there would usually be a one-off double bill, either of Hammer or other horror films but in later days sometimes a pair of soft core films.
The Odeon wasn’t where Boots is now. It was where Bonmarche now stands on the other side of what is now a pedestrian walk but which was at the time a road. The Odeon extended back South down the hill, making use of the natural rake so that the screen was at the end away from the High Street. It backed onto what was then the bus station.
Quite a bit of the derelict Bedford Theatre can also be seen in a short film called “Victorian London”. It turns up periodically in Talking Pictures TV’s “Glimpses” strand.