Devon Cinema Gazetteer

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HOLSWORTHY

Market Hall

Initially opened around 15.03.1923 by James Hawkins and Percy G Walsingham of Holsworthy.  Situated in The Square there was seating for 400.  The operation was taken over by John Bennett & Horace John Sillifant (Bennett & Sillifant)  in 1924, who continued to operate the cinema until World War II.  The sound system was Morrison.  The building is again a market hall.

Cinema Hall ~ Tudor

In 1932 a company was established by £1.00 shares called Holsworthy Cinema Company Ltd, incorporated 27.04.1932.  The most significant number of shares (900) were held by Bude Picture House Limited, and by its owner  George Edmund Graver with 100.  The basic single floor cinema with projection box above the foyer was built in Bodmin Street a little distance from the centre of town.  The sound system was Morrison, the proscenium was 28' wide and the stage 15' deep.  There were 3 dressing rooms and live shows took place here as well as cinema.   Seating for 333. The Cinema opened on Thursday 14.10.1932 with Daddy Long Legs and My Friend The King.  By the 1950s the cinema was run by Constellation Cinemas Circuit, based at the Plaza, Lyndhurst and had been renamed Tudor, the sound system being changed to British Thompson Houston.  Not a very appropriate name for such an elegantly simple art deco cinema.   By the mid 1950s Constellation had changed to Hagger's Cinemas Ltd, still based at Lyndhurst in Hampshire, who installed CinemaScope with a 24' wide screen.  The cinema closed in the early 1960s.  Still used as a theatre today, the sign over the entrance presumably stands for Holsworthy Amateur Theatrical Society (?).

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