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The Palace Cinema
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The Palace Cinema Site navigation - please use menu on left (click here to display it if not visible). If problems, use site map. |
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Pictured right - the Palace Cinema, probably in the 1960s. The history of the Palace Cinema (full name, the Palace Cinema Picture Palace, and known locally as the Picture House) is told in Norman Mackie's article. It opened in 1939, and served the town well until around the early 1970s. In its final period as a cinema, it attempted to compete with the influence of television by showing 'Midnight Movies', an initiative which had some success in attracting the romantically inclined young folk in the town. But eventually television won the battle, and the building then served as an amusement arcade for a number of years. A disastrous fire in 1985 destroyed everything but the external walls and the façade. The photographs below show:
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After
the fire, the building had the
misfortune to fall into the hands of a firm of developers who ignored
pleas from the local authority to, at the very least, make the façade
presentable, and who demonstrated what can at best be described as an
irresponsible attitude to local environmental concerns. The paint
peeled, the rats rampaged, and the sycamores sprouted. 
Eventually the
occupiers of the two shop units decided they had had enough and the
entire building was left to the mercy of the elements.
Although the cinema was not a listed building, Fife Council hoped that the façade could be saved as the frontage for a new building on the site. However, by early 2008, the structural steelwork within the façade had deteriorated to such an extent that a Dangerous Building Notice had to be served on the owner. The entire building was demolished in May 2008. At the time of writing (June 2008), the site is awaiting redevelopment.
The Scottish Cinemas and Theatres website has a remarkable collection of 65 photographs from the interior of the Palace Cinema as it was after the fire and prior to demolition. Remember to click on the thumbnails for larger versions of the photos.
The old photo on the right shows Miss Mackie, Director and Manageress of the Palace Cinema, pictured in its luxurious lounge. We are very grateful to Norman Mackie for his permission to reproduce the photo.
The prancing reindeer on the panel behind Miss Mackie was a motif repeated elsewhere in the cinema's decor, notably in the stained glass windows in the façade. Immediately prior to the demolition of the building, Douglas Speirs, Fife Council's archaeologist, was able to rescue the one surviving window, as the following photos show. The window is now in the ownership of Burntisland Heritage Trust, and we would be delighted to hear from anyone who might be able to offer an appropriate new home for it. Please contact us.
Left
- the window from the inside, just before it was removed.
Right - Douglas Speirs (with red hat) and colleague on the
cherry-picker with one of the four sections of the window.
Webpage by Iain Sommerville;
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