Ritz Cinema

In Millom, Cumbria, the Ritz Cinema appears to have been a relatively short-lived cinema, set up within a larger existing building.

The building is an imposing structure, of stone with red stone dressings, with a tower feature at its apex at the junction of Crown Street and Wellington Street. According to an inscription in stone high on the Wellington Street façade, it was built for the Millom Co-operative Society.

The Ritz Cinema is first listed in the Kinematograph Year Books in 1948, with minimal details, but showing a seating capacity of 400. The cinema was presumably set up in the building’s main hall.

By the 1956 edition the seating capacity had reduced to 384 (later to 366). The proprietor was by now R. Cowpe, there were two shows daily and three changes of programme each week. Perhaps surprisingly, CinemaScope had been installed, the 21ft by 12ft screen fitting snugly into the 22ft proscenium.

The Ritz Cinema is listed in the 1961 Kinematograph Year Book, but not the 1962 edition. So presumably it closed down in 1960-61.

The building continues to play host to a variety of business, with shops at ground floor level and offices above. It is not know what the former cinema space has been used for since the Ritz Cinema departed.

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