Cinema

In Torrington, Devon, it is not known when the Cinema opened, but it is thought to have been around 1919 (it was not listed in the 1914 Kinematograph Year Book). It was housed in a small building that had been built on the site of an old tannery.

Years later, former patrons remembered that, in the 1920’s, the Mayor and Mayoress used to treat schoolchildren to a film just before Christmas and, as they came out, they would each be given an orange and a toffee. They particularly remembered Harold Vincent, manager of a glove factory who was Mayor in 1926, as being a nice man who gave them sweets.

In the 1930’s Richard Long and his son, Rex, were in charge of the cinema, with Rex operating the projector. Mrs Long was at the cash desk. Prices ranged from 4d to 6d for children and 6d to 1s for adults. Cinema audiences, especially during the day when lots of children enjoyed the films, were generally noisy and, “if we got too noisy, Mr Long would chuck out the worst offenders”. There was a wide bench seat at the back which could accommodate about six people and was mostly used by courting couples in the evenings. This was covered in leather and had been made from the rear seat of a charabanc!

By the 1950’s two programmes a week were presented, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. At that time admission was 2s 6d at the back, 1s 6d in the middle, 1s further forward and 7d at the front. By that time Fred Stapleton was the projectionist; apparently the films would often break down and Fred would need to be fetched from the pub!

The cinema closed in May 1964, with Elvis Presley in “GI Blues”, and moved over to bingo.

It is not known when bingo ceased but, once it had ended, the building was unused and became ever more dilapidated. Eventually, it was demolished to make way for the building of new housing, known as Tannery Row, which was completed in 2006.

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