In the first of these “Not West Bridgford” blogs I mentioned
the Tudor Cinema, which used to stand on the corner of Central Avenue and
Rectory Road – in what is now (ironically) called Tudor Square (it wasn’t
called that when the cinema was there). I noted the influence of the Tudor
style in other parts of West Bridgford. So on Tuesday afternoon this week it
was a real pleasure to go along to an excellent illustrated talk about the
Tudor Cinema by Bob Massey, given at West Bridgford library.
As well as some of the cinematic history, and events such as
air raids and floods which impacted upon the locality, the speaker provided a
considerable amount of architectural detail.
The Tudor’s architect was Alfred John Thraves, who worked for a practice
in Victoria Street in the centre of Nottingham. Thraves also designed a
precursor, very similar in overall appearance, but sadly now a Chinese
restaurant - in Bourne, Lincolnshire. A later clone of the Tudor appeared in
West Kirby on the Wirral, and another related Thraves design – never actually a
cinema but still surviving among a row of shops – can be seen in
Mansfield Road, Sherwood, on the north side of Nottingham. Any of these might
have made it into “Not West Bridgford” – although only the Sherwood example was
known to me prior to Bob Massey’s talk.
The Tudor lasted only from 1931, shortly after the
introduction of “talkies”, until 1959, when the mass acquisition of TV sets was
well under way. Despite protests, the cinema was demolished and replaced by a design-free
two storey block – currently this block includes an Iceland supermarket, a
Thomson’s travel agency, and the Shalimar restaurant. When a photograph of this
architectural masterpiece was presented at Tuesday’s talk there was a titter of
amused derision among the audience, who were all of a certain age and able to
recognise retrograde progress when shown it. Lets face it, they’ve had a lot of
practice.
If – back in the Fifties - one stood on the steps of the
Tudor one could look in an easterly direction, straight up Davies Road towards
the edge of the built up area, half a mile away, in the direction of Gamston
Bridge. On this side of West Bridgford are several long straight roads – Davies,
Blake, Eltham, Burleigh, Stamford and Leahurst among them which – very subjectively
it has to be admitted – offer a strong sense of “east”, the direction from
which the new day arrives, and towards low land adjoining the Grantham Canal,
with allotments and so forth. Despite new building at Abbey Park and Gamston
this visual impression is still available today.
To illustrate this blog posting with a “Not West Bridgford” example I offer a photograph of part of a shopping parade at Beacontree Health, on the east side of London, close to Dagenham, where there is also this strong sense of easterliness. It’s sort of suburban Co-op Arts and Crafts architecture, between-the-wars, slightly ramshackle. With a little imagination these shops could be in West Bridgford – at Abbey Road, Brockley Road or Hilton Crescent, perhaps.
