Camelot Cinema, Newquay 1981
$20.00
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Description
The story of the Camelot Cinema in Newquay begins in 1912, when the original building opened as the Pavilion. By 1919, it had been converted into a cinema, seating around 750 people with a proscenium width of 30 feet. For decades it served as one of the town?s key entertainment venues, showing the latest films to locals and holidaymakers alike.
In June 1968 disaster struck when a fire destroyed much of the Pavilion. Rather than signalling the end, the building was rebuilt with a modern fa?ade and reopened in June 1969 as the Camelot Cinema. The new venue boasted 800 seats and had the rare ability to screen 70 mm films, a cutting-edge feature at the time.
Ownership of the Camelot changed hands several times over the following decades. Jackson Withers initially operated it, before it was taken over by the Rank Organisation in 1976. Subsequent owners included Garfield Daniel, Goldstar, and finally Mr. N. Whale in 1990. The cinema?s fortunes waned, and it eventually closed, though it briefly reopened in August 1995 to host the premiere of Blue Juice, which had been filmed locally.
After that, the building sat largely unused until the summer of 2006, when it was converted into the Australian-themed Walkabout pub. The transformation erased most visible traces of its cinematic past, ending nearly a century of entertainment history on the site.
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