Palace Theatre

MappMan on April 16, 2020 at 8:10 am

Some further background taken from “Made in North Notts” (issue 13 November/December 2019, p.51).

It took twenty-two weeks to build and was Mansfield’s first purpose-built cinema. An advertisement for the grand opening in 1910 refers to it as the Palace Electric Theatre. The seating capacity was 850; 500 seats in the pit, 230 seats in the stalls, and 120 seats in the circle. Admission prices in 1910 were threepence for the lower pit, fourpence for the pit, sixpence for the stalls and one shilling for the Grand Circle. Sound was introduced in 1931, the first talking picture to be screened being “Love comes along” (1930). The building was refurbished in 1937 when pieces of the ornate plaster frontage began to fall on pedestrians. It was replaced with plain rendering.

The cinema became a theatre in 1944, reopening on 3 July. Plans to convert it back to a cinema failed to materialse and it closed in August 1954. The building was bought by Mansfield Borough Council in 1956 for £11,500 and reopened in March 1957 as the Civic Hall. It received a new frontage in 1971 and was renamed the Civic Theatre.

Ken Roe on October 8, 2010 at 4:34 pm

History, photographs and memorabilia on the Palace Theatre:
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