Maypole Cinema

The building at the lower end of Shore Road (now Shore Street), on its corner with Marine Parade, became home to the Picture House circa 1915. It had previously been used as assembly rooms and council meetings. Before that it was the Holywood Baths, offering the public a warm-water sea bath for 1s and a tepid shower bath for 4d. It’s described in the Belfast & Ulster Street Directory (1924) as the Picture House, Garage, Shore Street. The Kine Year Book (1928) lists J. McDonald as the proprietor. The pre-war price for the cheapest seats was 3d or just two jam jars for children without any money.

The K.Y.B. (1933) carries a new name for the Picture House – the Maypole Cinema. It was equipped with a Western Electric(WE) sound system. Holywood’s famous maypole, the only surviving one on the island of Ireland, stands at the top of Shore Street. The K.Y.B. (1935) shows the proprietor as M. W. Kennedy & Co, Academy Street, Belfast; it also shows seating as 450 (1939 edition - 350). By 1942 the Maypole Cinema has been acquired by Raymond Stross Cinemas. Raymond Stross was best known as a film producer; his wife was the actress Ann Shelton. Around that time Stross lived in the locality.

Early in World War II, Raymond Stross ran live stage shows to entertain the thousands of troops (garrisoned at the nearby Palace Barracks) in Holywood Town Hall. Stross’s Garrison Theatre was a short-lived venture, being destroyed by fire in 1940. The Maypole Cinema suffered a similar fate on 27th October 1944; it did not reopen.

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