Electric Palace Cinema, Harwich
The Electric Palace Cinema, in Harwich, Essex, England, is one of the oldest purpose built cinemas in the UK that survives in its original form. It was designed by the architect Harold Ridley Hooper of Ipswich, Suffolk and opened on 29 November 1911.
The cinema closed in 1956 after being damaged in the 1953 East Coast floods, but re-opened in 1981, retaining the original screen, projection room and frontage as well as much of the original interior. It is now a community cinema. Until 2006, when a Wednesday screening programme was introduced, films were shown at weekends only. The building also hosts regular jazz concerts.
The cinema is a Grade II* listed building and in 2009 was removed from the Buildings At Risk Register[1] maintained by English Heritage following structural refurbishment, the completion of which, was celebrated on 15th July 2009[2].
In November 2006, British actor Clive Owen became patron of the cinema and helped launch an appeal to raise funds to help repair this historic building.
History
The Electric Palace cinema, Harwich, is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas to survive complete with its silent screen, original projection room and ornamental frontage still intact. Other interesting features include an open plan entrance lobby complete with paybox, and a small stage plus dressing rooms although the latter are now unusable. There is also a former gas powered generator engine with a 7 foot fly wheel situated in the basement.
1911-1956
The cinema was built in 18 weeks at a cost of £1,500 and opened on Wednesday, November 29th, 1911, the first film being The Battle of Trafalgar and The Death of Nelson. The creator of the Palace was Charles Thurston, a travelling showman well known in East Anglia, and the architect was Harold Hooper, a dynamic young man of 26 years who demonstrated his imaginative flair with this his first major building.
1956
The cinema closed in 1956 after 45 years interrupted only by the 1953 floods and was listed as a building of sociological interest in September 1972 and is now a Grade II listed building.
1981-present
It re-opened in 1981 and now runs as a community cinema showing films every weekend.
Patron of the Electric Palace
Clive Owen became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema, Harwich. He made his first official visit to the Electric Palace on 10th November 2006 to launch the Electric Palace Appeal.
Palace Digital Fund
A new campaign has been launched to bring Harwich’s iconic cinema into the digital age. The cost of the new digital equipment will be about £55,000 and the Electric Palace Trust aims to raise the money by November 2011 when the cinema celebrates its centenary.
The cinema will retain the two 60 year old Kalee 21 projectors which currently are used to show new and old 35mm films so that in future when new releases will all be digital, it will still be possible to screen pre-digital-age films such as those from the National Archive of the British Film Institute. Over the years the Electric Palace has built up a very good working relationship with the BFI because it can project these historic films on the class of machines on which they were projected at first release.
Famous visitors to the cinema (1911-2011)
HRH Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Phillip (The Duke of Edinburgh), British film directors Terence Davies and Mike Hodges, Graham McPherson (Lead singer of British Ska band Madness), Spanish theatre actress Anna Campoy Bartes, British actor Kenneth Cranham and, of course, the cinema's patron Clive Owen.
External links
References
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