Astra Theatre

Thornleigh is a small suburb in Hornsby Shire, about 16 miles from centre Sydney. Entertainment began with the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1923, owned by locals P.Keeley and J.W.Payne. Movies were shown and occasional live events. The Sydney Morning Herald for July 16th 1929 reports on a presentation of the Japanese operetta “Princess Chrysanthemum”, staged to assist a benefit fund.

In 1940, renamed the Astra Theatre by new owner J.S. Mathieson the programming was movies. Ross Thorne, Associate Professor of Architecture at Sydney University was a boy of 11 and frequent patron. He recalls seeing Disney movies there and described the theatre as “pretty basic with exposed trusses in the ceiling. The entrance, as far as I remember was on the corner – very small with a ticket box tucked under the stairs to the small upstairs. My memory tells me that the floor of the entrance was plain red concrete – possibly periodically painted with “Solpah” red. It would have been the least decorated of all the suburban picture theatres I know, reminding me of country cinemas of the 1920’s”.

The Astra Theatre may not have been architecurally splendid but it survived into the 1970’s, finally being demolished in a general development of Thornleigh’s business strip.

Recent comments (view all 6 comments)

johngleeson on December 6, 2013 at 4:01 am

Our thanks to Professor Ross Thorne for his comments but above all for his passion towards saving theatres as an important part of our architectural and cultural heritage.

Dizi4u on February 9, 2014 at 5:26 am

Very interested in getting photo/photos of ASTRA THEATRE Thornleigh around the 1960’s-1970’s if anyone has one. Cheers, Dizi4u : )

Eric GLASBY on March 1, 2014 at 1:58 am

Hello,

My frontal exterior pic of the ASTRA Theatre THORNLEIGH – taken in the sixties/seventies – was published with my permission, in KINO, the magazine of the Australian Cinema and Theatre Society during 2013 – page 6 of the SPRING, 2013 publication, Issue Number 125.

The original is an Ektachrome 127 color transparency cardboard mounted slide.

Cheers,

Eric GLASBY ()

Boogan on August 3, 2017 at 11:42 pm

I attended the Astra Theatre Thornleigh in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. The entrance was on Pennant Hills Road, closer to the corner was the theatre shop, which could be accessed from the theatre and Pennant Hills Road. The ticket office was on the right side going in and the stairs leading to upstairs were on the left (north side). The floor in the entrance was a red colour. There was carpet upstairs

davidcoppock on June 5, 2018 at 10:01 pm

The site is now a supermarket(Aldi).

ianej on July 2, 2019 at 9:04 pm

The Astra Theatre was originally the Prince of Wales Theatre and owned by the Akhurst family.