On Sunday evening whilst I was checking the spammy comments the site receives every day I nearly deleted a brief comment from Nick Lester about the old Hoylake Cinema.
That prompted me to start searching for information about the Hoylake Cannon and the result was the above photo by Ian Grundy. Ian has a wide range of photos of old, neglected cinemas in his excellent photostream. Ian comments on his photo:
The Hoylake Cinema in 1996, not long before demolition. It had a long career starting out in 1911 (having replaced an earlier temporary structure) as the Lighthouse Pavilion. Although short films formed part of the variety entertainment presented, it was not until 1920 that the theatre became the Pavilion Super Cinema. However over the succeeding decades the name and switches from theatre to cinema were common. Winter Gardens, Classic and Cannon were all used until the final Hoylake Cinema name. Demolished circa 2001.
Judith Irvine replied to the Nick’s comment stating that a Mrs Mottram from Caldy was the last owner of the cinema. But can you offer any more information? Leave a comment.
dear sir
surely the main cinema(and to my mind the best) was the kingsway cinema.
b jones
I saw the classic “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” there in about 1963, plus loads of others as this was a favourite “flea-pit’ with the lads around that time. Oh happy days.
The entrance on the left was the lower car park, there was a narrow path wide enough to take a car going behind the projection booth end of the Cinema. This went through to the land area in front of the row of coastguard cottages which were set well back from the Prom. Lots of old boats were stored there. I also remember the stump of the lower lighthouse was still visible half way along this link pathway.
We went to the “tanner rush” on Saturdays, Flash Gordon, the emperor Ming, and a glamourous queen whom I always fancied! I think the other serial was Superman, I remember one episode where a boat drilled through to one of the New York tunnels, Superman saved everyone by shutting some watertight doors at each end of the tunnel.
This was during the Winter Gardens realm, and they also had Christmas parties for the Saturday kids.
By the way, if you sat down in the stalls, the older children would suck the flavour out of the penny lollies and throw the ice down on top of you from the ranked seats! I am sure one of the Hoylake cineamas had double seats at the end of the row, very popular when you became aware of girls!
Apparently the Winter Gardens was the location of the first appearance by a young Morecambe and Wise (1939) – who failed to go down very well….
My most embarrassing moment ever: In 1969 the Winter Gardens showed a feature-length sex-education film called ‘Helga’, forbidden to unaccompanied minors. My friend Trevor and I, 14 at the time, heard it had a full-frontal childbirth scene and tried to sneak in – partly to get our first cinematic view of a Lady Garden (yes, gross, I know) and partly for the thrill that the challenge of getting past the box-office presented. We were turned-away.
I must have spilled the beans to my Mum, because she insisted on taking us both the next evening. Two hours of agonising embarrassment followed and, after we sheepishly schlepped home in Mum’s footsteps, the incident was never mentioned again.
Does anyone remember playing marbles in the foyer of the Kingsway Cinema on the way to and from Market Street School? It was a lovely surface on which to play.
Is this the same Margaret Couchman who lived in Groveland Avenue?
And yes, I also played marbles at the very same place.
Didn’t your Aunty run the pub at the roundabout at Heswall? Sorry, I’ve forgotten the name.
Some names from the past..
Barbara Booth
Bobby and Penny Atherton
Alison Ryding and the Ryding Clan
Mr Fleet the blacksmith
Whitley’s chippy
Cliff Davidson
Les Blackwell
Paddy Wakefield
Ken Dean
Marchbanks funeral home
Joe and Barbara (Broster)
To name but a few!
Referring to the ‘Trackback’, I have numerous photos of the Lighthouse Pavilion / Winter Gardens and architect’s photos of the Kingsway when it was rebuilt in 1935.
As regards Ian Powers’ remarks on the 20th October, the ‘stump of the old lighthouse’ was never visible after it was demolished in 1922. What I believe he may be thinking of is the old lookout station, immediately behind the Sailing Club in one corner of the cinema car park,which was still at its full height in the late 1950s but was gradually demolished / fell apart until it had all but vanished in the 1970s
Loved coming here when I was little must of been late 80s when my mum jackie was the cleaner here have so many lovely memories. Sad its not there any more.