Skating Rink, Pyrometer Factory, Picture Theatre, Rendezvous, Rex, Magrath Avenue

History of the Skating Rink etc

Chesterton OS map 1901

1909

Opened as roller skating rink

1910

Almost certainly the Rendezvous roller skating rink, 1910

On the reverse of a postcard posted 1910 with this design it reads “Here is a picture of the new Cambridge rink.’

1913

University and Town Skating Rink Cinema

A Andrews, manager

Cambridge Skating Carnival 13th Jan c.1910-1920 (MoC)

1914

Horace Darwin, founder of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, set up a factory at the outbreak of WWI to manufacture pyrometers which until then were largely imported from Germany. The Porcelain sheaths were sourced from Royal Worcester. The work-force was recruited largely from women, working a fifty-three and a half hour week, and forbidden to wear steel corsets containing ribs. this was because the factory also developed magnetic mines used against submarines and surface vessels.

See Mike Osborne, Defending Cambridgeshire

Chesterton OS map 1926

1919

Rendezvous Cinema, ballroom and iceskating rink

1931

Cinema burns down.

1932

Reopened  with 913 seats and enlarged to 1,100 with cafe, ballroom and cinema organ.

1934

Operated by Lou Morris. He left in 1936.

1937

Renamed Rex Cinema.

It also operated as a ballroom and attracted well known names such as Ted Heath and Chris Barber.

The Rex had a poor reputation with local residents. Ian Stephens of 47 Hertford Street remembered in 1981, a nearby menace because of the nocturnal noise it created was the Rex and that mercifully has been abolished. Cristina Sherriff of 14 Hertford Street recalled The Rendezvous. I remember one evening some friends called to take me there but my father wouldn’t let me go.

1954

It made national headlines when it showed the film The Wild Ones, starring Marlon Brando, banned by many other cinemas.

1967

Ceased operating as cinema and was used for bingo. The ballroom was used as a night club and featured ‘all in wrestling’ and ‘women’s wrestling.’

1968

Magrath Avenue, 1968

Abbey Sports Club began to hold cabarets here.

See Janet Haggar interview

1970-2

Reopened as cinema

1979

Demolished and site became car park