100 years old

The Cameo Cinema in Home Street, Tollcross is over 100 years old, having opened as the King's Cinema on 8 January 1914 and is one of the oldest cinemas in the UK still in use.

Behind a modern shopfront, much of the cinema's original architectural character remains. The entrance lobby has a terrazzo floor and one of the original pair of ticket kiosks. An inner foyer leads to the main cinema built within the 'back green' or 'back court' (courtyard) of a tenement block.

The original screen was mirrored, the first mirrored screen in Scotland, and there were 673 seats in an auditorium showing silent films with orchestral accompaniment, supplied at one time by Madam Egger's Ladies' Costume Orchestra. In 1930 the cinema was fitted for sound and could start showing talkies. The space has been left largely unchanged structurally, but the audience now have better sightlines and more comfort with fewer than half the original number of seats. There is an abundance of ornamental plasterwork: columns, cornices, decorative mouldings on walls and ceilings.

The cinema, and the full tenement it is part of, was awarded Category B listed status by Historic Scotland in 2006.

Hurrah for the cinema and makes me look forward to the forthcoming silent film festival which takes yearly, every March, in the wonderful Hippodrome Cinema in nearby Bo'ness.

Let's cheer for the coming of Friday and the start of the weekend!