The Cinemas of The Meadows and West Bridgford

The Meadows is a well-defined area of Nottingham south of the city centre.  It is bounded on the south by the River Trent, on the east and north by the Nottingham canal, and by Queens Drive in the west. In the 1970s, housing in the Meadows was deemed unsuitable by the council and a large part of the area was demolished to make way for a new development of modern council housing.

In 1975, the viaduct carrying the Great Central railway and Arkwright Street station was demolished as the new development started to take shape.

 The map below(an amended version from (8)) shows the Meadows in 1973 before the start of the major re-development – and in the time that the cinemas flourished.  The location of the 4 cinemas that had been operating in the Meadows are identified, together with the Plaza over the river in West Bridgford – but which was in the City until 1951 (9 p13). [The 6^th cinema, the Tudor, is about a kilometre to the south of Trent bridge].  West Bridgford is a contiguous urban area with the Meadows located on the south bank of the Trent.  It is now in the borough of Rushcliffe whereas the Meadows is in the City.

The table below summarises the characteristics of the 6 cinemas: 

Cinema name	Location	Year opened as cinema	Year closed as cinema	Seats	Present state of the building
Queens	Arkwright St	1911	1955	400	Demolished
Globe	North side of Trent Bridge	1914	1962	850-684	Demolished 1969
Imperial Picture House	Wilford Road	1916	1957	1000+	Demolished
Plaza	South side of Trent Bridge	1918	1942	833	Demolished
Grove	Mayfield Grove/KirkWhite St	1938	1962	1000 - 800	Demolished
Tudor	Tudor SQ WB	1931	1959	1391	Demolished

The Queens

When this cinema originally opened it was known as the Midlands Electric Picture Palace.  Probably due to the death of the owner it closed in June 1935 and then reopened as the Queens in January 1936.  It closed in 1955 (1).  Photo from the front cover of (8).  It is taken from the junction of Arkwright Street and Queens Road looking south to Trent bridge.  The Queens hotel (now a fireplace showroom) is on the right.  The entrance to the Queens cinema can just be detected on the left – a few metres closer to the photographer than the parked car (10).  

This cinema was not held in the highest esteem – a flea pit is one description (2).  

The Globe

The Globe was situated opposite Turneys leather factory at Trent Bridge, and the sidedoor, as shown in the picture opened out towards the bridge .The cinema was located a little further towards the bridge than the present car wash (2). The cinema was built and owned by Mr and Mrs Brian Ludlow.  Brian was a well-known bookmaker in West Bridgford.  Its standard offering was an A and a B feature and the News (2). The picture below is from (9, p19).

The Globe closed on Friday 30th June 1961 as a cinema to reopen as a bingo hall on Monday 10th July 1961. This venture closed on Saturday 4th October 1961, and the Globe reopened as a cinema on Monday 23rd October 1961. It finally ceased as a cinema on Saturday 30th June 1962 (7).

From ref 3.  Lime trees were planted more than 100 years ago to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria to Nottingham and the naming of Queen’s Walk in her honour.  Keen to retain the wood from the trees, local residents have worked with the Nottingham Express Transit (NET) extension project to ensure that it can be used to create something for the community to enjoy.

Two local artists have been painstakingly carving images into the tree trunks to create twelve 2.3 metre high ‘story poles’ representing the history and nature of The Meadows’ community. 

The first to be installed to mark the launch of the project is the Old Meadows story pole hand carved by local tree sculptor Dan Sly. The pole includes a film reel wrapped around the pole to celebrate The Meadows’ past and cinematic history. Dan used old photos to carve  a map of the Old Meadows, and the Globe Cinema frontage

The Imperial Picture House

After WWI a programme of building council houses began in The Meadows on vacant land south of Holgate Road. In 1916 the Imperial Cinema was erected on Wilford Road (11) , about 1/3 of the way down from the City to the Wilford Toll bridge on the left-hand side. (2)  The picture is from (9, p18).

The Plaza

The Plaza was opened in 1918 as the Pavilion Picture House & Garden. As can be seen below, this was quite a grand building (10).

The Pavillion closed on the 27th August 1927 and reopened as the Palace on Thursday 15th September 1927. It closed on Saturday 26^th December 1931. It was restyled by Alfred Thrave, with a new entrance (picture(10) and reopened on Monday 16^th May 1932 as the Plaza (1 p71).  It closed on 14th March 1942 (7).