Plaza Cinema

On St. Mary’s, the largest and most populous of the Isles of Scilly, the Plaza Cinema opened in the Hugh Town district in 1949. However, its roots were laid many years earlier.

In 1928, baker Bertie Ashford and fuel merchant Harold Solomon started showing films in what is today the Masonic Hall, using a 9.5mm Pathe projector. At some stage they moved to the old Sunday school behind the Wesleyan Chapel, still with just the one projector.

They showed their first ‘talkie’, “Rome Express”, starring Esther Ralston and Hugh Williams, in early January 1934 at the Atlantic Hotel, and further screenings took place at the Methodist schoolroom.

Then, a fortunate friendship between Harold Solomon and Tommy Blakely, who was stationed on Scilly during World War II, moved the operation to the next level. Mr Blakely’s father owned Mancunian Film Studios, and he was able to obtain a projector from a bombed out cinema in Bristol, as well as a better rate for the hire of the films.

This led the partners to Garrison Lane, where the purpose-built Plaza Cinema opened in 1949. It had tip-up seats (a welcome change from the wooden forms in the earlier buildings) and a screen, courtesy of Mr Blakely, that measured 13ft by 11ft. There were also two projectors! Shows were presented six nights a week, with one change of programme each week.

At first the place was regularly packed out, but, inevitably, television began to make inroads into the audiences. In 1963 the partners sold the Plaza Cinema to a consortium of guest house and hotel owners - none of whom had any experience in the cinema business!

The new owners started showing films in June 1963, beginning with the James Bond adventure “From Russia With Love”. Sean Connery even sent them a good luck telegram! But the owners were losing money from day one, although they took this on less for the money than as a tourist attraction. They also had plans to open a café and restaurant in the nearby empty Wesleyan Chapel, to subsidise the cinema, but lack of start-up funds prevented this happening.

The Plaza Cinema did have CinemaScope installed, but it was becoming very time-consuming for the seven directors, as they all took their ‘turn’ at managing the cinema and trying to keep up with the increasing amount of maintenance that was required.

In 1972 they finally gave up. It is not known precisely when the Plaza Cinema closed, but the council bought the building for £29,800 in 1975. It was demolished within a year.

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