King's Cinema
Front Street,
Pelton,
DH2 1LT
Front Street,
Pelton,
DH2 1LT
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Additional Info
Previous Names: King's Cinematograph Hall, King's Hall
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In the small County Durham town of Pelton, near Chester-Le-Street, the King’s Cinematograph Hall opened 20th April 1922. It was owned by Pelton Electric Theatre Company.
Perhaps rather unusually for the times, Sunday opening was permitted. This was of great concern to the vicar, Rev. Wilkinson, because some parishioners headed straight to the cinema after the evening service!
In 1930 it was equipped with a British Talking Picture(BTP) sound system and the first ‘talkie’ was Alfred Hitchcock’s “Blackmail”.
The cinema was referred to, with the shorter name of King’s Hall, in the 1940 Kinematograph Year Book, which also listed 975 seats.
By the 1953 edition the seating had been reduced to 770 and the cinema, now known as the even shorter King’s Cinema was owned by Dalton Theatres Ltd.
The King’s Cinema was still open in the late-1950’s but had closed by around 1960. It was converted into a warehouse. When I visited, in October 2005, the building had signage for a warehouse for G. Wood Tyres, but it was not clear whether it was still in that use. By Mach 2007 a block of flats named Kings Court had been built on the site.
On Friday 20th March 2015, the new ‘Pelton Memorial’ was unveiled adjacent to the main entrance of the £4.5 million Lavender Centre in Pelton Village, which opened in 2013. The 2m tall structure displays 12 granite roundels depicting the history and the associations of Pelton Village. Happily, one commemorates the King’s Hall.
Contributed by
David Simpson
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Recent comments (view all 1 comments)
A block of flats called Kings Court now stands on the site. GPS ref: 54°52.328'N, 1°36.788'W, actually not far from where the estimated postcode puts it.