Consultation on Paignton Picture House

The red carpet is out because there was a consultation day about the plans for the old cinema’s restoration. A significant grant has been obtained and work starts next year, for completion by 2024. Briefly the history is as follows. Paignton Picture House is reputed to be one of the world’s oldest purpose-built cinemas, built before the word had even been invented and it was first called the Electric Bioscopic Exhibition centre in 1907.
The cinema closed its doors to film-going audiences after the last film "The Smallest Show on Earth" was shown in September, 1999.
Until its closure the Paignton Picture House regularly welcomed a variety of celebrity patrons such as Torquay-born crime writer Agatha Christie, HRH Prince Edward (and possibly his namesake Edward and Mrs Simpson), Paris Singer of the sewing machine fortune and his mistress Isadora Duncan, and mystery story teller Edgar Wallace. It was owned by the Dartmouth Steam Railway Company but eventually
In November 2015 it was bought by the newly founded Paignton Picture House Trust, a building preservation trust dedicated to restoring this much loved building to its former glory. The first phase was the restoration of the frontage.