Stories from the Memory Palaces

Instead of telling the complete history of London’s cinemas, I’ve chosen to tell a single story that happened at each one.

Many of these are about the films they showed, others are about the famous faces who’ve visited them or the lesser-known people who worked there.

My hope is that as you read the stories and click through the connective links a whole picture of London’s picture palaces emerges.

Scala cinema

Scala, King’s Cross (1920—1993)

Regent Street Cinema 5

21 February 1896

The birth of cinema-going in Britain

The first public screenings of the Lumière brothers’ films change entertainment forever.

Regent Street Cinema (1912 —)

Maida Vale Picture House 2

7 March 1913

Kinemacolor in Kilburn

Even before World War I audiences in London were watching films in colour.

Maida Vale Picture House (1913 — 1940)

Time capsule buried by Harrison Ford in 1993 outside Vue Cinema, Leicester Square

3 September 1993

Harrison Ford buries a time capsule in Leicester Square

The Indiana Jones and Star Wars star is the guest of honour at the reopening of a classic 1930s cinema.

Warner, Leicester Square (1938 —)