Lodge Kinema

Situated in Briton Ferry, a town in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, an on-line source maintains the Lodge Kinema was built in the late-1930’s, and was the first cinema in the district to show the Civil War epic “Gone With The Wind”, which ran for several weeks. The Lodge Kinema is also said to have had an air raid siren on its roof during World War II.

However, the first appearance of the Lodge Kinema in the Kinematograph Year Books was not until 1946.

At that time, it was owned by Lodge Kinema Company Ltd., and had 1,000 seats (this was slightly reduced, to 976 seats, a few years later). A Western Electric(WE) sound system had been installed.

By 1956, still under the same ownership, CinemaScope had been installed, without, apparently any loss of seating capacity.

By the following year, the cinema had been acquired by Ferry Cinema Company Ltd., who ‘upped’ the declared capacity to 1,020 seats. The proscenium was 32ft wide, with the ‘Scope screen measuring 30ft 6ins by 15ft.

By 1962, the Lodge Kinema was being operated by Lodge Social and Entertainments. However, this was its final entry in the Kinematograph Year Books, so it is assumed the Lodge Kinema closed around this time.

It is also assumed that bingo took over straightaway. The Lodge Bingo Club was certainly operating on Monday 1st November 1968, when the South Wales Echo reported that, the previous evening, a car travelling towards Neath had been struck in the rear by another car, which sent it across the footpath and smashing into the swing doors of the Lodge Bingo Club. Five women were taken to Neath General Hospital, but were not detained.

Ken Demery, a director of the club, said it was fortunate this had happened on a Sunday, as it was their quietist evening.

It is not known when the Lodge Bingo Club closed, or what, if anything, happened to the building later on. It has, however, been demolished, and Lodge Court now stands on the site, at the Neath Road/Ynysymaerdy Road crossroads (known locally, I believe, as Lodge Crossing).

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