Eastbourne’s Lost Cinemas: The Picture Palaces of the Past

The golden age of cinema-going

In the first half of the 20th century, going to “the pictures” was the heart of British popular entertainment, and a resort town like Eastbourne was well supplied. By the 1930s the town had a cluster of cinemas within easy walking distance of one another, from converted Victorian halls to purpose-built super-cinemas with their own organs and orchestras.

The Seaside Road area, in particular, became Eastbourne’s cinema heartland, with several picture houses operating close together. Films were often accompanied by live music, and the grander cinemas doubled as venues for variety acts and dance bands. For decades, these were the buildings where the town courted, celebrated and escaped — until, one by one, the lights went out.

The Seaside Road picture palaces

Three of Eastbourne’s early cinemas clustered around the Seaside area, and between them they racked up a bewildering number of name changes over the years.

The Tivoli, on the corner of Seaside Road and Queen’s Gardens, had the longest and most tangled history. Its building began life as the New Hall in 1889, was converted to cinema use in 1906, and passed through the names New Picture Hall, New Picture Palace and Eastbourne Picture Palace before becoming the Tivoli Cinema in 1915 — and, by 1939, the grand-sounding Tivoli Super Cinema. It closed at the outbreak of the Second World War, reopened in 1944, and finally shut as a cinema in 1982. It later became a performing arts centre and then a nightclub before being converted into offices and housing.

The Gaiety, on Seaside, opened in 1914 as the Eastbourne Picture Theatre and, like the Tivoli, changed its name repeatedly — Empire, Elysium, Gaiety and finally New Classic — before closing in 1973. Part of the local circuit run by Randolph Richards, it was sold to Classic Cinemas in 1966. In its afterlife it served as a bingo hall and a nightclub before eventually becoming a restaurant.

Nearby, the Central on Seaside Road opened in 1914 as the Central Hall Electric Cinema, becoming the Central Cinema, the New Central Cinema and finally the Manhattan before it closed in 1966, later given over to bingo and roller skating. Together, these three vanished picture houses show just how central cinema-going once was to this corner of the town.

The Luxor: Eastbourne’s super-cinema

The grandest of them all was the Luxor, which opened in the town centre on 3 April 1933. Built for the independent Walter Bentley circuit, it was a true 1930s super-cinema: its entrance was crowned by a large dome, and its auditorium boasted a 40-foot-wide proscenium and a deep stage that, in the early years, hosted cine-variety acts and concerts by the famous dance bands of the day.

Its crowning glory was a mighty Compton organ, a three-manual instrument with an illuminated console that would rise up to entertain audiences between films. The Luxor soon passed to the Union Cinemas chain and then to Associated British Cinemas (ABC), and in 1962 it was renamed the ABC. The organ was removed in 1972, and the following year the cinema was split into two screens — a common fate as audiences dwindled. Renamed the Cannon in 1986, it finally closed as a cinema in 1991, its role taken over by a new multiplex.

The Picturedrome and the last picture show

Eastbourne’s most poignant lost cinema is the last one to close. The Picturedrome opened on Langney Road on 21 December 1920, seating 1,100 across stalls and circle, with its opening film accompanied by a celebrated orchestra. Damaged by German bombs in 1940, it quickly reopened, and in 1966 it was sold to Classic Cinemas and renamed the Curzon. In the early 1970s it was “tripled” into three screens.

For decades, the Curzon carried a special distinction: it was the last traditional cinema standing in Eastbourne, a beloved independent picture house that generations of locals had grown up with. But in July 2019 an eight-screen Cineworld opened in The Beacon shopping centre, and the little Curzon could not compete. It closed on 16 January 2020, just short of its 100th birthday — the final screenings playing to almost empty auditoriums.

Its story did not quite end there. The abandoned Curzon, left with its seats, screens and projector eerily intact, became a magnet for urban explorers and photographers, its faded grandeur frozen in time. It stands today as the most haunting monument to Eastbourne’s lost age of cinema.

Bingo halls, nightclubs and multiplexes

The slow decline of Eastbourne’s cinemas mirrored the national story. The arrival of television in the 1950s and 60s emptied the great auditoriums, and one by one the old picture palaces closed or were split into ever-smaller screens. Many found second lives as bingo halls — a fate that befell the Luxor, the Gaiety, the Central and others — while some later became nightclubs, and others still were converted into shops, restaurants, offices or flats.

The final act was the coming of the multiplex. In August 1990 a new six-screen cinema opened east of the town centre at the Crumbles, and the modern era arrived properly in July 2019 with the eight-screen Cineworld at The Beacon. That gleaming multiplex delivered the coup de grâce to the historic Curzon just months later — the last of the old cinemas finally giving way to the new. From a town once dotted with picture palaces, Eastbourne now has a single modern multiplex, while the ghosts of its lost cinemas linger on, hidden in plain sight in the fabric of the town.

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