Palladium Picture Theatre

Situated in one of the main thoroughfares in Gloucester city centre, the Palladium Picture Theatre was a shop conversion that opened circa 1913. The building had originally been the Upper George Inn, then Norton’s Garage.

There were 400 seats in the stalls and 90 in the small balcony, and a café at the rear. The proprietor was Wallis Harris, a local trader, and Mrs Evelyn Harris accompanied the silent films on the organ.

By July 1923 the manager was Geoffrey Cooke, and that month the Palladium Picture Theatre was closed for renovation work to be carried out. The proprietors were then Palladium (Gloucester) Ltd.

On 14th June 1926 the Palladium Picture Theatre was acquired by H. Scott Bayliss of the Picture House, Cannock. The manager was Mr Dominey. Despite the renovations carried out in 1923, the opportunity was taken to reseat and redecorate the cinema, and new projectors were installed. A new orchestra was under the direction of Mr J. Davidson.

Sadly, all this effort was in vain, as the Palladium Picture Theatre proved unsuccessful and it closed on 12th November 1927. The final films were “The Strong Man”, starring Harry Langdon, and Alec B. Francis in “The Return of Peter Grimm”.

By 1928 Peacock’s, drapers, had acquired the premises, but it became a NAAFI depot in 1941. Foyles furniture stores eventually moved in - and, in May 1970, it nearly returned to ‘the pictures’ when cinema entrepreneurs Bernard Snowball and Mike Flook applied to convert it into a cinema to be called Studio 70. Sadly, this did not materialise. Cotswold Discount Furniture moved in; by 2018 that had been replaced by a branch of KFC.

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