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1500 children of unemployed outside Rendez-vous Cinema (MoC74/7/6)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
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