This pub was built as the King’s cinema, in 1932. A casualty of cinema’s general decline in the 1960s, King’s cinema closed down in 1967. Within a few weeks, it reopened to a full house as the Star Bingo and Social Club. The bingo hall survived into the 1990s and, more recently, was used as the Picture House Night Club. It is now this Wetherspoon pub.
Photographs and text about The Picture House.
The text reads: This J D Wetherspoon pub has been created out of a former cinema, opened in 1932. Called the King’s Cinema, it was the second picture house on the site, replacing the Picturedrome, which dated from 1904.
Three Forest Street cottages were demolished to make way for the King’s Theatre, a wood and corrugated iron structure, said to have had seats for as many as 1,000 people. Luxury seats cost two shillings (10p), while the cheapest were sixpence (2.5p).
Sutton people saw their first films in the Town Hall, around 1903. With titles like A Pillow Fight, and A Motor Fire Engine, the films would have lasted only a few minutes, presented as interludes in variety shows.
The first film at the King’s was shown in 1906. There were still live shows, including pantomime, but films became a regular feature. After Wold War I, a typical programme consisted of a feature film, an episode of a serial, a newsreel and maybe a cartoon featuring Gertie the Dinosaur, Mutt and Jeff, or Felix the Cat.
The rebuilt King’s, its entrance now in Fox Street, opened with a showing of The Unholy Garden, which starred Ronald Colman and Fay Wray, later famous as King Kong’s co-star. The last film to be shown here was Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, in 1967.
A photograph of Market Place, Sutton-in-Ashfield, c1910.
A photograph of the park, Sutton-in-Ashfield, c1905.
If you have information on the history of this pub, then we’d like you to share it with us. Please e-mail all information to: pubhistories@jdwetherspoon.co.uk