Cinema

This was Sidmouth’s first permanent cinema after films had been earlier shown in the drill hall and Manor Hall in the town. Arthur W Ellis a local photographer and film exhibiter converted the Belle Vue restaurant in Fore Street using the local architect R W Sampson. The frontage was part of an old house which became the foyer, with flats above and Sampson built a delightful auditorium on land at the rear, seating three hundred and fifty on one raked floor. As in most early cinemas the screen was painted on the rear wall. It opened on the 17th February 1913 with the film ‘Under Two Flags’. It was just called The Cinema, or to the locals ‘Ellis’s Little Cinema’. It was never converted to sound and closed when Ellis opened his larger Cinema, The Grand, in town in February 1929. The building was then used for numerous retail outlets, eventually becoming Knights clothing store and more recently, in 2010, became Fat Face clothes shop. They made major alterations but much of the plaster work from the old auditorium is still intact.