Following on from the last post we’ll have look at some of the eleven (yes it’s hard to believe) cinemas that were in the borough in the mid 1900s, but have since been demolished.
Merthyr Electric Theatre
Opened in 1910, it was Merthyr’s first ‘purpose-built’ cinema.
The Electric Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Palace Theatre
Merthyr’s second cinema, opened in 1912.
The Palace Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Castle Cinema
Opened in 1929, it was built specifically to show the new ‘talkies’, and was Merthyr’s grandest cinema.
The Castle Cinema. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Cosy Cinema, Penydarren
Opened in 1914
The Cosy Cinema
The Victoria Cinema, Dowlais
Opened in 1910, it was Dowlais’ first, and only ‘purpose-built’ cinema.
The Victoria Cinema. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archivepubl
The Oddfellow’s Hall
Built in 1876 as a meeting hall, it housed a cinema for many years.
The Oddfellows Hall. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Picture Palace, Troedyrhiw
Opened in the 1920s
Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Electric Cinema, Aberfan
Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
The Palace Theatre, Treharris
Opened in 1891 as the Treharris Public Hall, it later became the Palace Theatre.
The Palace Theatre, Treharris. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.
Do you remember visiting any of these cinemas? If you do, please share your memories.
Ninety-five years ago today, on 4 July 1926, General Marden unveiled the Pant War Memorial, with about 1,300 people in attendance and with loud speakers and microphones were in place for the event. Pant was the second village in the area to erect a memorial to the men killed in the First World War.
The Memorial Committee was inaugurated in 1920; house-to-house collections were organised and many promises of weekly contributions were made, but due to the coal strike of 1921, and the trade depression that followed, the final cost of £800 was not quite met. The local inhabitants had paid the bulk of the money, and the school-children contributed largely through the many concerts organised by the staff. Also mentioned for their donations were: Merthyr Football Club, the directors of the Victoria Cinema and the Oddfellows Hall (where the concerts were held).
Mr F. J. Bateson released the ground he had rented from Messrs Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, enabling them to give the ground, previously owned by Daniel Thomas, stonemason, for the memorial. Before the memorial could be erected, the urinal built in 1906 had to be moved to the other side of Caeracca Bridge.
The Memorial is built mainly of Portland stone, with the side wing walls and steps leading to the cenotaph of local limestone. The bronze plate centrepiece reveals the names of local men who were killed during the conflict.
Designed by Mr C. H. C. Holder, a curator at Cyfarthfa Museum, the sculpture is a monument to the skill of Councillor F. J. Bateson from Pant and his assistants. The Mayor, Alderman D. Davies J. P., another Pant resident, accepted the deed as a gift from Mr S. J. Lloyd, Secretary of the Memorial Committee. The mayor had actually lost his son in the War, and his name is commemorated on the plaque.
General Marden, in his response, thanked the Dowlais Male Voice Party for “the most wonderful singing he had ever heard”. The march to Pant was led by the Municipal Band and the G.K.N. Dowlais Silver Band.
A second plaque was added to the memorial to honour the men of the village who died during the Second World War.
Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
To the left hand side of the main memorial is another plaque honouring the men who had been employed at the I.C.I. Factory at Dowlais who died in the Second World War. These were:
By the late 1920’s, with the burgeoning popularity of ‘moving pictures’, Merthyr already had a number of purposely built cinemas: the Electric and the Palace in town, the Cosy in Penydarren, the Victoria in Dowlais and the Picture Palace in Troedyrhiw. Everything changed in 1927, however, when ‘The Jazz Singer’ was released. This was the first ‘talking picture’, and cinema was revolutionised.
Unfortunately, none of the cinemas in Merthyr had the technical apparatus to show ‘talkies’, so it was decided that a new purpose built cinema was to be erected. Merthyr Cinemas Ltd, a company which had been set up in 1916 by Henry Seymour Berry to oversee the growing number of cinemas in the town, undertook the planning for the enterprise, and the new cinema was built on the site of the old Castle Hotel. It was designed by the architect O.P. Bevan with the building work carried out by a local contractor – Mr George Warlow using stone supplied by Vaynor Quarries. The overall cost of the building was £300,000.
The Castle Cinema was opened on 11 February 1929 by the mayor, Alderman David Parry at a grand ceremony. The following description of the building appeared in the Merthyr Express on 16 February 1929:
“The Castle Cinema is capable of seating 1,700 people, and ranks among the most commodious and luxuriously fitted film theatres in the Provinces. The main entrance is on Castle Street, so that patrons are spared the discomfort of congested traffic conditions in High Street. The foyer, approached through three pairs of double doors is of an irregular shape, spacious and is beautifully decorated. Leading from the marble foyer are staircases to the mezzanine floor and the gallery, and double doors opening to the ground floor, where there is an excellent fall towards the stage and screen. The walls are beautifully decorated by murals paintings of singular beauty and charm. Large landscape panels, designed by Mr. J. Jones, a local artist, for the decorators (Messrs. W.R. Lewis and son, Merthyr) show stately castles and medieval settings, and across the ceiling is colour washed a brilliant sky illuminated from two light ray domes. An electrically controlled passenger lift carries patrons to the balcony, and gallery floors. The hall is built of fire resisting materials, and the various inlets are supplemented by numerous emergency exits. The Cinema is adapted also for concerts, and a dance or tea-room is provided on the Mezzanine floor, from where runs a small circle, with seats for fifty persons.
One of the famous Christie unit organs has been installed. It combines the musical features of the finest Cathedral pipe-organ, with the manifold voices of a symphony orchestra. no fewer than one hundred miles of electric wire is used in the construction of the mechanism, while 20,000 contacts , all of sterling silver and soldered joints, are contained in the console and action machines, and there are a thousand pipes. The three manual console is provided with 150 stop keys and a remarkable simulation of the human voice is produced by means of the vox human. The organist is Mr Gwilym Jones L.R.A.M., will also direct the Castle Cinema orchestra, which will be under the leadership of Mr Ronald Jones, from the London Symphony Orchestra.”
In 1932, the cinema was bought by Associated British Cinemas and renamed the ABC Castle Super Cinema. In 1954, the organ, which had been falling into disrepair for many years was removed, and in 1972 the cinema was bought by the Star Group who decided to alter the cinema – converting the stalls into a bingo hall, and converting the balcony into two small ‘studios’.
From 1977 the cinema passed into the ownership of several independent operators, and in 1998, the bingo hall closed and a new 300 seat cinema was opened in its place the following year. The cinema closed in 2003 and soon fell into such a state of disrepair, that despite several failed ventures (a skating rink and a pub), the building was demolished in 2011.
The biggest and most popular cinema in Merthyr was the Castle Cinema. It was very grand with a large foyer with a café and lounge upstairs. Inside the auditorium were three tiers of seats, and at the back there was a section that was partitioned off by glass so that you could watch (but not hear) the film whist you were waiting to go in.
The cinema was managed by Mr Cyril Smith, and the commissionaire was Vines Perry. The Castle also had a magnificent organ which would rise out of the floor, and the resident organist was Gene Lynne.
The Castle was owned by ABC Cinemas (Associated British Cinemas), and on a Saturday morning they would have the ABC Minors – a cinema club with special showings for children. At the beginning of each Saturday morning session, the “ABC Minors Song” would be played to the tune of ‘Blaze Away’, whilst the lyrics were shown on the screen with a bouncing red ball above the words to help the audience keep the place.
The Palace Cinema, which was in Pontmorlais (where the car park near Flooks is now), was smaller than the Castle. It only had two tiers of seating, but it too had a café upstairs. The manager at the Palace was a Mr Jones who was always smartly dressed in a black suit and a dickie-bow. The Palace was a very popular cinema, but the lasting memory is that in the winter it was always freezing cold there, so there would always be a scramble to sit near the radiator.
The Palace Cinema
Also on the High Street, just a few doors up from the Castle Cinema, was the Electric Cinema. This was the oldest cinema in Merthyr, and by the 1940’s it was quite dilapidated and had a bit of a reputation – its nick-name was ‘The Bug-House’. I (Ken) only ever went there once when I was quite young. I had asked my mother to take me to see a George Formby film (I don’t recall which one), and when we got to Merthyr (from Abercanaid), the only cinema that was showing it was the Electric. My mother didn’t want to go there, but I finally persuaded her – but only on the understanding that I never told anyone that we went to the Electric!!!!!
The Theatre Royal and the Temperance Hall were also used for theatrical performances as well as being cinemas.
The Theatre Royal was also quite grand – it also had two tiers of seating, with a standing area at the back…..not glassed in this time though. Every Christmas there was a Pantomime there – I (Ken) remember seeing Cinderella starring Ronnie Ronalde (the yodelling music hall star) as Dandini and the radio stars Clapham and Dwyer as the Ugly Sisters.
The Temperance Hall also put on plays – it even had its own repertory company. One of the junior leads was Pamela Mant who left the company to play Christine Archer in ‘The Archers’. Another regular at the Temperance Hall was Pat Phoenix who went on to star as Elsie Tanner in ‘Coronation Street’. When you went to see a film at ‘The Temp’, you had to be careful where you sat. Some of the seats downstairs were behind the pillars supporting the balcony, so you would be forever dodging from side to side to see the screen. Also, one of the rows of seats was quite rickety, and if you weren’t careful, you would find the whole row falling backwards…..with you on it!!!!
Of the other cinemas in Merthyr, the only others I (Ken) visited were the Oddfellows Hall and the Victoria in Dowlais – this was because the queues in Merthyr were so long that we caught the bus to Dowlais to watch the films instead. I only visited each of them once. I remember the Oddfellows Hall was quite big, but a bit old fashioned, and I particularly remember the Victoria because when you entered the auditorium, you came in from under the screen. I had never seen that before.
The Oddfellows Hall (left) and the Victoria Cinema (right)
Those days were poorer, but simpler times, but we were far more contented, and it is sad that all of the history of those days is being washed away.
In the decade or so following the Second World War, cinema took hold in Britain in a big way. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true nonetheless that people loved the all the Hollywood glamour and escapism that the films provided to take their minds off the austerity of post-War Britain.
Merthyr was no exception – going to the cinema became one of the big attractions in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Such was the demand that at one time Merthyr had eleven cinemas – five in town (The Castle, The Palace, The Electric, The Theatre Royal and the Temperance Hall); two in Dowlais (The Oddfellows Hall and The Victoria); one each in Penydarren (The Cosy); Troedyrhiw (The Picture Palace); Aberfan (The Electric) and Treharris (The Palace).
Going to the cinema in those days was a real night out. As well as the main feature, you would be treated to a ‘B’-movie (usually a Western from memory), a news-reel, a cartoon and adverts for forthcoming films. The news-reel footage made a huge impact – we only saw the news in newspapers or heard about it on the wireless, but seeing the pictures on the big screen really brought things home to us. I (Ken) particularly remember my grandmother being very upset and having to leave the cinema when they showed news-reel footage of the liberation of Belsen. Everything was on a continuous loop – there were no showings once or twice a day…the cycle would start at a certain time (‘B’-movie, news, cartoon, adverts, main feature), and would continue non-stop until closing time.
You could also have an ice-cream in the intermission as a treat. These were sold by the usherettes. They were a big part of the cinema going experience, they would show you to your seats, and woe-betide you if you misbehaved – you would have the usherette’s torch shining on you within minutes. Repeat offenders would be asked to leave!!!!
Quite often, after the last showing of the evening, you would emerge from the cinema and the town would be crowded with people coming from other cinemas all hurrying for buses to make their way home.
Forthcoming films were advertised in the Merthyr Express, and people would also turn out in droves to see their favourite stars. In the 1940’s the big stars were Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Clarke Gable etc. The big matinée idol at the time was Robert Taylor, and the pin-up girl was Rita Hayworth.
Robert Taylor and Rita Hayworth
When there was a ‘big’ film it wouldn’t be unusual to see people queuing around the block to get in. The ones that were particularly memorable were ‘The Robe’ at the Theatre Royal and ‘Quo Vadis’ at the Castle. The biggest queues however were for the re-release of ‘Gone with the Wind’ in the late 1940’s (the original release was during the war) at the Castle Cinema – the queues stretched as far as the eye could see.
How times have changed, all of these cinemas have closed, and all but the Theatre Royal and Temperance Hall have been demolished. For many years, Merthyr didn’t have a cinema at all until the Vue Cinema complex was opened at Rhydycar. It’s not the same – the glamour and excitement have all but disappeared.
