Last Days of Britain's First Granada Cinema, Dover, UK

A niche interest "urban exploration" video showing the interior of the Art Deco building at the junction of Castle Street and Dolphin Passage shortly after demolition work began in July, 2014.

Sister post to "Then and Now, Britain's First Granada Cinema, Dover, UK" (not yet uploaded)

Contents:

1) Introduction

2) The video, "Last Days of Britain's First Granada Cinema"

3) The Grand Staircase ruins in July, 2010

The Granada in its hey-day:

1) Introduction

Designed by architect Cecil Masey and constructed in 1929, this building was opened as the first Granada cinema in Britain by Sidney and Cecil Bernstein on the 8th of January, 1930.

The interior designer was Theodore Komisarjevsky who set the auditorium in a Moorish style and the foyer in a Louis XV, 18th century french style.

See: My Office at The Eight Bells

The Granada became the ABC Cinema from 1960 to 1982 ("Saturday Morning Pictures"!) It was subsequently re-invented as Images ("Damages") Nightclub and then finally, Snoops Nightclub.

The site at  62 Castle Street, Dover CT16 1PA is owned by J D Wetherspoon who also own the local Eight Bells pub in Dover.

2) The video, "Last Days of Britain's First Granada Cinema"

The relevance of the video to the Coronavirus pandemic is because of the current lock down restrictions in place in England:

In 2014 I entered the rear of the Granada and took half-a-dozen video clips of the ruined interior using my Canon 600D DSLR for videography for the first time.

My intention was to learn how to use the camera in this mode and then to review the footage in order to decide what scenes to take on a subsequent visit.

Unfortunately, a rudimentary security fence was in place the next time I arrived at the site. It could be circumvented quite easily but in my mind the fence made the difference between simple trespass and breaking and entering.

The original clips have been sitting on my PC ever since. My clockwork computer doesn't do video editing and so, on the basis that any video is better than no video at all, I've used the increase in spare time that I have to merge the clips into one continuous sequence with no editing at all.

3) The Grand Staircase ruins in July, 2010

A better view of the staircase than that shown in the video. It was made of marble and led to the Upper Circle with chandeliers and Venetian mirrors:

The ticket office and reception area, and then Dolphin Passage, are behind the viewer; the auditorium is to the left; a main exit and Castle Street (that joins the Market Square to Castle Hill Road) is to the right.

External links of interest:

ABC Cinema Dover

Granada / ABC Cinema Castle Street
 
ABC Cinema Dover Concert Set lists

Abridged versions of this post are also on Facebook and Twitter.