BOURNEMOUTH GRANT TOO
THE CONTINENTAL CINEMA. WIMBORNE RD / ALMA RD. WINTON. BOURNEMOUTH. DORSET. 1969
Development in Winton had begun in earnest in the latter 1850s and 1860s, as a 'working class' area for those connected with the fledgling Bournemouth that was springing up around the mouth of the Bourne stream. As the new town developed land values rose, and so those attracted to the area as builders, carpenters and other tradesmen, needed to build the new town, as well as those offering services to the well heeled inhabitants of the large villas and hotels, were forced to look further afield, to undeveloped areas such as Springbourne and Winton, on which to build their more modest homes.
Winton had several farms, all of which had disappeared by the 1920s, and it was the buildings that had been at the heart of Malmesbury Farm that were finally swept aside to make way for a new building, initially called Winton Hall, the home of the Electric Palace Cinema, that opened in 1911.
By the early 1930s it had become The Plaza Cinema, and in the 1950s it became The Continental Cinema.
By the late 1960s it's best days were behind it and when i was at school it was known as "the flea pit", and was infamous, in our playground at least, for all the dirty old men in brown macs that were rumoured to watch the hard core porn films they showed there. What these men are said to have indulged in during the screening is probably best left unreported.
In reality the hard core porn was the most dreadful soft porn, if indeed it could be classed as porn at all, as a group of adolescent schoolboys found out on a very disappointing Friday night back in 1979.
The building was demolished in 1989 and the site is now occupied by the Hop and Kilderkin pub.
THE CONTINENTAL CINEMA. WIMBORNE RD / ALMA RD. WINTON. BOURNEMOUTH. DORSET. 1969
Development in Winton had begun in earnest in the latter 1850s and 1860s, as a 'working class' area for those connected with the fledgling Bournemouth that was springing up around the mouth of the Bourne stream. As the new town developed land values rose, and so those attracted to the area as builders, carpenters and other tradesmen, needed to build the new town, as well as those offering services to the well heeled inhabitants of the large villas and hotels, were forced to look further afield, to undeveloped areas such as Springbourne and Winton, on which to build their more modest homes.
Winton had several farms, all of which had disappeared by the 1920s, and it was the buildings that had been at the heart of Malmesbury Farm that were finally swept aside to make way for a new building, initially called Winton Hall, the home of the Electric Palace Cinema, that opened in 1911.
By the early 1930s it had become The Plaza Cinema, and in the 1950s it became The Continental Cinema.
By the late 1960s it's best days were behind it and when i was at school it was known as "the flea pit", and was infamous, in our playground at least, for all the dirty old men in brown macs that were rumoured to watch the hard core porn films they showed there. What these men are said to have indulged in during the screening is probably best left unreported.
In reality the hard core porn was the most dreadful soft porn, if indeed it could be classed as porn at all, as a group of adolescent schoolboys found out on a very disappointing Friday night back in 1979.
The building was demolished in 1989 and the site is now occupied by the Hop and Kilderkin pub.