FairWorld Cinema
Fountain Street and Chalenor Street,
Guisborough,
TS14 6QF
Fountain Street and Chalenor Street,
Guisborough,
TS14 6QF
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: FairWorld Cinemas
Functions: Gymnasium
Previous Names: Carlton Cinema
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Located in Guisborough, North Yorkshire. Little is known about this cinema. It is not listed in any of the Kinematograph Year Books but it is known to have been operating as the Carlton Cinema in the 1960’s & 1970’s. It briefly became a bingo club. It closed soon after but reopened c1980 as the FairWorld Cinema with GK projection equipment and sound; it was short-lived. Since 1999 it has been a health club/gymnasium known as the Allama Health Studio.
Contributed by
Harry Rigby
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
My friend, Bill Mather, former CEO of Fairworld, will know quite a lot about this cinema’s history and I shall ask him about it the next time we speak.
I do recall that the Carlton was on bingo for a few years whilst Thompson’s Empire cinema was still open. In the early 1970’s the Empire, I believe,was made a compulsory purchase by the Local Authority and the Middlesbrough based Thompson’s Enterprises purchased the nearby Carlton and reopened it as a cinema. It was the last cinema operated by that once large independent circuit prior to its acquisition by Fairworld.
Bizarrely, Carlton Cinema (Guisborough) Ltd is still trading! Property developers now though. Business began way back in 1956. Information available on Companies House website.
Proscenium image uploaded. Lovely little cinema!
This property is the former TEMPERANCE HALL, which was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 (along with the EMPIRE).
On the 1927 OS 25-inch map (see Photos section), this property is marked as ‘Hall’. The EMPIRE, set back from Chaloner Street, is marked as ‘Picture Theatre’. The only other Guisborough cinema I have found mention of is the PRIORY. It is mentioned a couple of times in The Kinematograph Weekly: July 1917 in an advert quoting a letter from manager Ted Mawdsley; and December 1917 in a promotion for a film booking. Mawdsley went bankrupt in 1922. He told the hearing that he started the PRIORY in 1916 but had to close it (by 1922) because renters would not accept his bookings. This would explain why the PRIORY is absent from the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 and from the (next known extant) KYB-1927; and why the venue is a ‘Hall’ on the 1927 OS map. From KYB-1927 to KYB-1954 the EMPIRE is Guisborough’s sole cinema listed. I have found a 1952 report of a CARLTON ballroom in Guisborough. The venue in this article is the TEMPERANCE HALL which became the short-lived PRIORY cinema.
This building did indeed become the Carlton ballroom but in 1954 it reverted to cinema use retaining the name Carlton. In the early 1960’s bingo took over and this was the case until Thompson’s, who owned and operated the Empire, transferred operations to the Carlton in about 1969.
Fairworld took over the cinema in the mid 1970’s, when Thompson’s - once a large North East cinema circuit - decided to ‘bow out’ of the business. Fairworld operated the building on lease (as did Thompsons) until closure 40 years ago in 1982. The last film was ‘Annie’.