County Cinema
Dalton Square and Friar Street,
Lancaster,
LA1 1PW
Dalton Square and Friar Street,
Lancaster,
LA1 1PW
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There is some confusion on the buildings location caused by the map arrow being incorrect. The County is on the North East corner of the square, the building arrowed is the Dalton Rooms, a former garage but with an exterior that some mistake as a former cinema.
The County Cinema, Dalton Square, Lancaster was next door to the home of Dr Buck Ruxton who was the perpetrator in a dramatic murder case in the 1930s. He killed and dismembered his wife and maid and dumped their body parts in a river in Scotland.
The case is celebrated as being the first case to secure a conviction by forensically re-constructing the face of the victim and the timing of insect life-cycle.
Both buildings are still intact and in regular use.
My sister Margaret Edwards was the Cinema Manageress here for 4.½ years until her death in 1945.
The following information and text is from the entry for the Hippodrome, Lancaster in “Curtains!!!” (1982):
1799 – opened as a Roman Catholic chapel. 1859 – use changed to a Temperance Hall. 1902 – converted to become the Hippodrome theatre. 1981 – converted local authority offices.
“The interior was completely reconstructed in 1931 as a cinema with one balcony and a small stage incorporated within the auditorium. Ashlar front to Dalton Square, which forms the end of a handsome terrace of houses. The side walls show the arched windows of the former chapel/temperance-hall. In 1980/81 the interior was gutted for offices, the façade restored and the arches in the side elevation unblocked and windows inserted.”