Cinema, Lord Street, Southport, Merseyside
This cinema opened as the Picture Palace on 29th May 1911 with "A Tale of Two Cities". It was one of several cinemas in the town designed by local architect George E. Tonge. It was built in an Edwardian Baroque style. There was a cafe on the first floor which ran the length of the building. In 1929 it closed for a major reconstruction, again to the designs of George E. Tonge. It reopened as the Palace Cinema. It was renamed the Essoldo in 1971 and became the Classic Cinema in 1972. It was taken over by the Cannon Group in the 1980s and closed in January 2003. The building was demolished in 2005 despite being a listed building and one of the earliest surviving purpose-built cinemas.
