Super Cinema
2-4 Balfour Road,
Ilford,
IG1 4JF
2-4 Balfour Road,
Ilford,
IG1 4JF
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Aerial photographs on the Historic England website show views of the Super in 1946 with the bulk of the auditorium roof intact (with some damage on the Ley Street side). A June 1947 view shows the auditorium roof having been removed. This is the state I remember from visits to my grandma who lived in the first surviving house at the top end of Ley Street (number 13, numbers 7, 9 and 11 having been destroyed in the V2 blast).
A couple of us kids used to climb into the ruins of the Super, around 56/57. Great, but spooky and unsafe place to play. The front end, foyer area, was intact, but dark and scary (for a 10 yo, anyway), but the back end at the stage was a ruin with superstructure hanging down precariously. There was some kind of heating passages under where the seating was, because we used crawl through them. I never knew until reading this that it was a V2. I just thought it was an ordinary bomb. That is history, for sure.
I just also read that the Hippodrome at Ilford Broadway was also ruined by a V2, but a month earlier. How many did they throw at us for two of them to hit so close – must only have been a quarter mile or so.
I believe the Compton organ can still be seen in St Cedds R.C. Church, 4 Blythswood Road, Goodmayes, Essex IG3 8SH.