A cinema in Brimington?

Brimington might well have had a cinema in the early 1920s, had the plans of a small group of local businessman reached fruition. There’s a little about this unlikely plan in this blog.

The Brimington Palace Ltd

Perhaps ‘out of the blue’ in the Derbyshire Times of 15 July 1922 it was announced that a new company – the Brimington Palace Ltd – had been formed to ‘carry on at Brimington and elsewhere the business of proprietors and managers of cinematograph and other theatres etc.’ The newspaper reported that shares were £100 with remuneration set by the company.

Five days later the Kinematograph Weekly reported that ‘A number of Chesterfield entertainment caterers have acquired a vacant site at Brimington, a village on the outskirts of the town, on which to erect a kinema.’ The company had been registered with a capital of £7,000 in £1 shares.

Presumably this was exciting news for the village, but unfortunately things did not seem to progress.

Nothing further has yet been traced about the scheme, save in January 1930, when the Sheffield Daily Telegraph notes ‘Brimington Palace Ltd – mortgage dated 31 December 1929 to secure £852 and further advances, charged on properties at Brimington Derbyshire. Holders:- Halifax Building Society.’ Did this point to the project might still having been capable of being resurrected in the late 1920s?

Site acquired but never built

It’s clear that a site had been acquired for the proposed cinema, but that it was never built. But where might this have been?

It’s quite possible that the site (which could have included existing buildings though it was described as ‘vacant’) was acquired by private contract and wasn’t sold on the open market.

In the six months before the July 1922 announcement there are a minimal (if any) potential site candidates advertised for sale. This is particularly so if those those central to the village are included and given that the site was ‘vacant’. Consequently we may never know where the proposed site was to be. Unless one of our readers has a reference to Brimington Palace Ltd in their deeds!

The company directors

The company directors were a mix of local businessmen. According to the Derbyshire Times the first directors were:

• A. P. Blackham, 120, Saltergate, Chesterfield (of Notts. and Derby Cinema Exchange, Ltd., and other companies). The Notts. and Derby Cinema Exchange, Ltd had been formed in February 1920. It was set-up to ‘carry on the business of theatre proprietors, developers and printers of and dealers in films, producers of film plays, hirers of cinema supplies. etc.’ It’s initial premises acquired were the freehold of the Central Hall, Shakespeare Street, Nottingham.
• C. P. Short, Oaklands, Brookside, Chesterfield (of Hippodrome (Chesterfield) Ltd., and other companies). The Hippodrome theatre was situated in the area where the inner relief road cuts through Corporation Street. For a number of years the company leased what is now the Pomegranate theatre which it used principally for showing films. Charles Plant Short died in November 1956. He was a member of the Chesterfield business family. He was director and one-time secretary of the Hippodrome company and had other interests in cinemas in the area. He was perhaps principally remembered as a partner in the well-known Chesterfield accountancy firm.
• L. Ford, Park Road, Chesterfield (of Thacker’s, Ltd.) Messrs W Thackers Ltd appear to have run a fish and chip restaurant on Holywell Street and perhaps more importantly a fish, game and poultry merchants, which at one time was on Low Pavement).
• W. H. Cherry, Holmgate Road, Clay Cross (of Hippodrome (Chesterfield) Ltd., and other companies); Cherry was described as ‘meat purveyor’ when he was declared as a shareholder in Hippodrome (Chesterfield) Ltd in the Derbyshire Times of 14 October 1922. He quit his business as pork butcher High Street, Clay Cross, after 38 years of business in 1927.
• B. T. Winterbottom, The Grange, Ashgate Road, Chesterfield. Winterbottom was a solicitor who was practicing in Sheffield at the time and later in Chesterfield.
• S. W. Swale, Stevington House, Chesterfield (of Hippodrome (Chesterfield), Ltd., and other companies). Swale was a member of the once well-known family, who, separately, ran drapers shops in the town.
• A. B. Short, Manor House, Sheffield Road, Chesterfield (of Entertainments (Chesterfield), Ltd., and other companies). This company also owned the Coliseum, Brampton. Alfred Burkitt Short was another member of the Chesterfield Short family. A builder and contractor – the once well-known Chesterfield building company – JAB Short – later evolved from his activities.
• Secretary: R. C. Bates. Registered office: 17, Gluman Gate, Chesterfield. These were the then offices of S. E. Short and Co., accountants and estate agents.

Just what happened to the company is not known, as is the fate of its plans for the Brimington Palace cinema, or the site that was purchased for it. Presumably it was thought that the commercial return to be made out of the venture would be inadequate.

The age of the cinema

In many respects, the 1920s was the age of the cinema. It was not unusual for local enterprises, such as that in Brimington, to be proposed and built.

The Hippodrome in Chesterfield had much earlier origins as the Theatre Royal, but by 1923 a new company had been formed and the old premises modernised.

The Coliseum at the bottom of Chatsworth Road opened in 1907. Much altered it still survives next to Matalan. It was originally a Methodist Chapel. It closed in 1957. Another ‘local’ cinema was the Lyceum on Whittington Moor – still surviving opposite Lidl. It opened in 1913, closing in 1963.

Hasland too, had its local cinema – opening in 1922. It’s now a garage near the traffic lights. It seated 554 people and may possibly have been on the lines of that proposed at Brimington. It had closed by 1963.

Other ‘local’ cinemas included the Oxford in New Whittington (opened in the 1920s) and the Lyceum, Whittington Moor (opened 1913). There were other examples such as Grassmoor.

Major cinemas were situated in Chesterfield town centre – most notably the Victoria (opened in 1924), the Regal (opened in 1936) and the Chesterfield Picture House (later Odeon – opened in 1923, extended in 1930) and now the Winding Wheel. Staveley had its Regal Cinema of 1939.

Pictures with sound arrived in London in 1928 – thereafter most cinemas would have updated their own equipment to project the ‘talkies’. Brimington’s picture house, if ever built when the company was set-up to build it, would therefore initially have shown silent films. It would undoubtedly, though, have been called ‘The Palace’ (or perhaps ‘The Brimington Palace’ But just what sort of palace it would have become we will never know.

A poor substitute

So, Brimington would have no cinema. There would be no ‘Palace’ in the village. The only films ever shown in the parish would be by local churches, schools and other local organisations. But you could always hop on one of the numerous local bus services into Chesterfield – so long as you didn’t miss the last bus home!

Sources used in this blog

Derbyshire Times, 17 December 1921, 18 February 1922, 15 July 1922, 14 October 1922, 3 August 1929, 2 April 1927, 17 November 1950.

Kinematograph Weekly, 20 July 1922,  01 November 1923, 09 August 1923

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1920, 29 January 1930

B Hornsey, Ninety years of cinema in Chesterfield (1992).

SE Redfern Ltd, 1899-1999: notes on the formation of a Chesterfield company (1999).