Palladium Cinema
High Street,
Ballymoney,
BT53
High Street,
Ballymoney,
BT53
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In Ballymoney, County Antrim two cinemas, the Palladium Cinema and the 300-seat Cinema, are listed in the 1940 and 1966 Kine Year Books. The Palladium Cinema was opened in 1937. It was closed in May 1969 with Charlton Heston in “Planet of the Apes”.
My scanned photographs were taken in September 2008, when the building was derelict and in very poor shape. By October 2013, when my other photographs were taken, it had at least been securely boarded up across the frontage, and the site was being offered for sale. The auditorium has since been demolished.
Contributed by
David Simpson
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
On a visit in September 2014 I was delighted to see that the frontage had been tidied up and painted to resemble the cinema as shown in an archive photograph helpfully displayed together with other heritage information (yes, the ‘windows’ are merely painted on!).
That information confirms this was the Palladium. It opened in 1937 and closed in May 1969, the final film being “Planet of the Apes”, starring Charlton Heston.
First sighting of the Ballymoney Picture House in Main Street was found in the Kine Year Book 1927 (had no access to earlier editions). The proprietor and manager was P. J. O’Kane. The entries continued along the same lines up to and including the 1933 edition but after that the Picture House disappeared from sight. Had no access to the 1934 but in the 1935 edition the Cinema (no address given then or subsequently) was seen for the first time. Could it be that the Cinema was the successor to the Picture House and, perhaps, had taken over the latter’s Main Street premises? Unfortunately, the Provincial Towns section of the Belfast and Ulster Street Directory throws no light on this conundrum.
The Kine Year Book 1937 (and again in 1938) lists A. C. Cinemas Ltd as the proprietor of the Cinema (in other editions the proprietors were not shown). A. C. Cinemas was also the owner of the Cinema in Ballycastle around the same time.
First sighting of the Palladium was in the Kine Year Book 1939, which lists J. N. Crawford as the proprietor (400 seats). Other than the name, this Palladium had no connection with the Palladium cinemas in Coleraine or Portstewart. Perhaps Crawford just liked the name! He also owned the Castle Cinema in Belfast.