Torbay Picture House given £200,000 grant

(Torbay) Paignton Picture House is one of the most important historic cinemas in the UK and It’s just been given a £200,000 grant from Historic England to refurbish intricate stonework and stained glass windows as part of a regeneration plan for the old cinema.

It was opened on 16 March 1914 and is believed to be the oldest surviving cinema in Europe. The cinema was built in the theatrical “free Baroque” style with art nouveau decorative details and includes a spectacular grand entrance and fine stained glass windows. In its early days it featured a 21-piece orchestra, with each member paid a guinea to perform.

There are 375 seats: 271 in the stalls, 104 in the circle, plus three private boxes at the back seating an additional eight.

The building was designed with comfort in mind, one of the first cinemas to boast a ventilation system allowing it to be heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. Famously the crime fiction writer Agatha Christie had a reserved balcony for her and her Butler, she watched films from her special seat as her butler served her drinks. She is believed to have used a thinly veiled version of the cinema in her fiction, calling it The Gaiety.

Many of the building’s original features have survived, including its tip-up seats, art deco wall lights made by a local smith, and the original pastel colour scheme. The ceiling features representations of the heads of the actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr as Moses and Mary Pickford.