Little is known of early film showings by the original Ledbury Amateur Dramatic and Ciné Society. If anyone has any details of our early shows, live or cinema showings, please make contact.
Ledbury had a dedicated cinema in the Homend, near its junction with Bank Crescent, which is shown on the 1926 Ordnance Survey map of the town. Sue Harling recalls: 'We used to queue up Bank Crescent because we always sat in the 1/9d. That was when Joan and I went on our own, but when we went with my mother and father upstairs the price was 2/3d; better seats altogether. Children used to queue in the Homend to get in for 10d, where they sat on benches. There was a lady called Mrs. Crossley who used to run the Cinema, and she used to announce to everyone what was happening in the film. She would shout "They are behind you" and not on our side.' The Cinema was very popular until 1961, when it closed following the decline of cinema nationally. It reopened after about six months for a short while, and then closed for good. Many of the seats were salvaged for use in the old Market Theatre.
Two programmes from the old Ledbury cinema follow. The first is an August programme, thought to have been from the 1950's. This would have been 1954 since the days of the week match the dates for that year. The second is for June 1960. LADS is grateful to Dave Grimes, who lent the originals. His grandmother, Mrs. E. Grimes, was manageress in the earlier programme, and his father was manager in 1960. Dave's grandfather was the projectionist in the 1950's.
Note the seat prices were the same in 1960 as they were in 1954!
Following its closure, the town was without a cinema except for occasional showings in the Old Market Theatre and in the Royal Oak ballroom (Royal Hall) on 16mm projection equipment. There were more frequent showings in the early 1990's when LADS hired equipment (again 16mm) and films from 'Reels on Wheels', which was the predecessor of 'Flicks in the Sticks'. 'Flicks' is the current organisation, part of Arts Alive, which brings films to rural venues in Herefordshire and Shropshire.
Shortly after the new Theatre opened, LADS joined the Flicks in the Sticks circuit - using their mobile DVD and VHS equipment. Then, in late 2002, with the help of generous grants from Advantage West Midlands and Ledbury Town Council, LADS was able to purchase its own Sanyo XP46 projector and a 6 metre wide Harkness-Hall roll-down screen. The latter is permanently mounted above the stage and can be lowered for film showing as required. The house sound system was extended to accommodate the multi-channel surround sound that is encoded onto most current DVDs.
In 2009, we acquired a Blu-Ray disc player that will play the most recent
High Definition (HD) discs. In 2011, with a generous grant from
,
we were able upgrade our projector to full HD (a Sanyo PLC-ZM5000) and install
a separate Dolby 7.1 sound system. This released our house sound system
for other uses. A second Blu-Ray player enables quick changing from
one HD source to another. We also have an SVHS player for those films
that are still on videotape.
Last updated Nov 9th 2011.
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