“There is nothing, that can match the compulsive magic of that big screen in a darkened auditorium. We may have become more sophisticated in the way moving pictures are made today but the essential cinema-going experience has not changed”
Cinema has the same capacity to seduce, influence and to overwhelm as it did 120 years ago.
You could race with Ben-Hur’s chariot, join Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, enjoy a Brief Encounter with Celia and Trevor, fly a Spitfire and Reach for the Sky. ride the range with John Wayne, Carry On Up the Khyber with Kenneth Williams and the gang, fight Star Wars, run from T Rex in Jurassic Park and attend Four Weddings and a Funeral!
An estimate in 1936 on audience attendance at Doncaster cinemas in a normal week was round about 50,000. Within the town boundaries there were seven sites accommodating over 10,000 patrons, used exclusively for showing films.
The Patron and Ambassador for Doncaster Cinema Heritage.
UPDATE: The Trent 33ft long sculptured Frieze stonework panels nowhaving been rescued from Rose Hill Cemetery are now back on public view for the first time in years. but being too heavy and large to go inside the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery on Chequer Road, they are now located within the Museum grounds behind a secure fence where it can be seen by the public and also be secure. The frieze panels were showing signs of being left outside for over 10 years and have now had a major restoration clean up.
Thank you and congratulations to all who signed the Petition and for all the support in the rescue of this magnificent surviving piece of our towns 120 year heritage of going to the pictures.
To celebrate 120 years of going to the pictures, let’s toast this Doncaster cinema celebration with a pint of Kinema.
From the first public screening of films in Fairground tents, Penny Gaffs, Dream Palaces to today’s Multiplex, a commemorative beer in celebration of Doncaster’s Cinema-going Heritage. Past, Present and Future.
Aims
Bring Cinema history to as wide an audience as possible.
The Cinema Heritage of Doncaster. ‘Let’s go to the Pictures’ is an independent not for profit group, involved in all cinema heritage, the Lead Campaigner in the saving of the 1934 art sculpture of the Gaumont Palace Trent Frieze, is not affiliated or associated with any Doncaster Council Lottery funded Organisation, Doncaster Heritage Association or Doncaster Civic Trust.
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