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85-89 Mill Road, Sturton Town Hall, The Kinema

A well-loved local cinema, popularly known as 'The Fleapit'.

Read the complete building report (PDF)

In 1881 The Sturton Town Liberal Hall Company (Limited) was set up by a group of local Liberals to create club rooms that men of the area could use to keep themselves informed. They decided to build a hall that could be used for public meetings and also let out so that he income from the hall could then be used to help finance the club.

In 1882 Sturton Town Hall opened and hosted a variety of acts over the next three years until the renewal of its theatrical licence  was refused. The Salvation Army took a lease on the hall which provided regular income over the next 25 years. In 1910 Fred Hawkins refurbished the hall and opened The Empire, for the first time showing the newly popular cinematographs as well as the traditional music hall entertainment.

In 1916 there was another change of name and control when A J Pointer reopened the hall as The Kinema, now a dedicated cinema, although there were still variety and musical acts in between the reels for some years. The Kinema lasted as a cinema for 60 years, with George Webb taking over the lease in 1950, until it became a Bingo Club in 1966 with occasionally late night films.

Listen to Gwydir Street resident, John’s memory of the Kinema.

The Kinema finally closed at the end of 1985 and the site gradually became derelict until it was finally demolished in 1996 to make way for a student housing facility known as Scholars House.

This report was compiled by Simon Middleton based on research by Allan Brigham and Simon Middleton.

Further Information

• Read the complete building report (PDF)
• Listen to Catherine Green talk about the Kinema
• Dencora Homes sales details
• Cambridge Town Owl: Catherine Tillyard leads a large protest on Mill Road against Prime Minister Balfour’s Education Act 1902
• Cambridge Town Owl: The battle to close the Rex Ballroom and Cinema by Shire Hall in the 1970s

Census data etc.

1890

(CIP 26.4.1890 p.6) Fracas at the Cambridge Salvation Army Barracks: A SoldierDisabled: At the Cambridge Borough Police Court, on Tuesday morning, before the Mayor (in the chair). Dr. Cooper. C. Balls, and J. Hough, Esqs , Mark Felstead (17), a labourer, of 12, Catherine-street,  was charged on remand with having assaulted William Mead, a member of the Salvation Army, at Sturton Town Hall, on the 13th inst.

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1913

Sturton Town Hall

The Empire Palace of Varieties, F Hawkins, proprietor

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1960s:

The Kinema closed in 1979. In 1985 there were plans to reopen it as a cinema but these came to nothing.

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In 2025 MM sent this note:

I remember watching films there in the sixties. Dales brewery was behind the Kinema and there was a back exit through their yard into Gwydir street. The brewery had a tall water tower with a large gold cup on top celebrating Dales ales. Many regretted when the cup and tower were taken down, another local landmark gone. Katherine talks of the bombing, the bombs fell either side of mill road bridge and on the west side hit the doctors house, then one hit the chapel in Sturton street and several hit houses either side of St Matthews church. The chapel was being rebuilt in the early 1950’s, I used to walk past the site on my way to Brunswick School.

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1990

Historic England have a few photos of the Kinema from 1990 after it had lain empty for a number of years.

 

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