O is for Odeon - again!

If you’re one of the folk who make up the 881,221 views of my blog, then you’ll know by now that I’m often writing about our local cinemas! I’ve put a link to some of those other posts about them in the notes below.

So, there could only be one candidate for an entry in the A–Z Blogging Challenge, in which I’m focussing on Art Deco in Loughborough, for the Letter O – and that would be Odeon!! And, there can only be one Odeon in Loughborough, can’t there? Well, yes, technically only one at a time, but the Odeon has been in two different buildings in the town, and notably, each having an Art Deco connection.

So, let’s have a look at Loughborough’s first Odeon, despite the fact that it was not the first of the two buildings to be built.

What is now the Beacon Bingo building on Baxter Gate, a building which is now owned by the Junction Church who are renovating it, was opened as an Odeon cinema. This was back in November 1936, when cinemas were hugely popular, and more and more were being built. Of course, Loughborough already had two other cinemas at the time the Odeon came along, but that didn’t deter Oscar Deutsch, who had built his first cinema in Brierley Hill in 1928, his first of the Odeon brand in 1930 at Perry Barr, and who by 1941 had overseen the opening of 258 Odeons in the UK.

Being built at the height of the Art Deco period, Loughborough’s Odeon on Baxter Gate is of the streamline moderne style, with its beautiful curved corners, its brilliant basket-weave biscuit-coloured faience tiles complemented by the striking black and green bands of stripes at the top and bottom of the building, and the marble-effect steps leading up to the entrance doors. The cinema’s first manager Clarence George Starkey was an entertainer extraordinaire, and made the most of his creative skills to ensure the success of the Odeon cinema.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of town, the Empire Cinema had opened in 1914, and as well as being a cinema, also had an entertainment space within. In 1929 the building was modernised slightly, but it wasn’t until 1936 that it had its Art Deco frontage that we know today, added. Although re-opened a month before the Odeon on Baxter Gate, so in October 1936, the building style, with its fabulous geometric tower, is quite a contrast to the original Odeon, isn’t it? if you pop along Town Hall Passage you can catch a glimpse of the beautiful stained glass windows from the outside, and the ghost sign of the building’s original name on the outside wall. This cinema went through numerous name changes, but today is Loughborough’s Odeon cinema, and now the only cinema in town.    

 

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Notes

O is for Odeon 

So Who was Clarence George Starkey

Loughborough and its cinemas

Jarrow Marchers and Loughborough cinemas

Art Deco in Loughborough

Cinema memories

H is for Hathern Station Brick and Terra Cotta Company, Hathernware, and the HodsonFamily

Empire Cinema, WW2, and Sir Malcolm Sargent

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!

 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Thank you for reading this blog.

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Dyer, Lynne (2025). O is for Odeon (again!) Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/o-is-for-odeon-again.html  [Accessed 17 April 2025]

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Finding Loughborough everywhere!

I'm ashamed to admit I've missed a couple of weeks blogging, this because I've been really busy, and been out and about rather a lot! Sorry about that!

So, I recently bumped into a friend who had been reading this blog, who asked me if I went into Loughborough town centre every day. Sadly, much as I'd like to, I don't manage to do this! I have a day job, which of course has to come first as it pays the bills, and on top of that I've been studying hard and writing a book. I'm hopeful that now my course has finished, and the book has been completed that I will have more time to investigate Loughborough, but I have a feeling the lure of study will be too great, and the call to publish too strong to avoid!

Anyway, over the last month, as I said, I've been out and about, trotting across the country, but wherever I have found myself, Loughborough has never been far from my mind. This, of course, has been made easier, by my accidentally bumping into someone from work whilst I was in Cambridge, and someone from Loughborough University whilst I was visiting Ripon Cathedral!! And, whilst perusing the bric-a-brac market in town last week, I met a stallholder who used to live in the small Welsh town where I began my life's journey! As they say, such a small world.

My travels over the last month have taken me to a number of places: Cambridge, Holywell-cum-Needingham, St Ives, Ely, Oxford, Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Attenborough Nature Reserve, Whatton House, The Outwoods, Beacon Hill and Lichfield! Where to start?!

I was sure I'd blogged about St Ives, Cambs, before, but now I come to look for the post I can't find it, so here's some of the connections with Loughborough that I spotted this time: 

Both Loughborough and St Ives have a pub called The White Hart:

The White Hart in St Ives

The White Hart in Loughborough

Sticking with pubs for a moment, in St Ives there is a pub called the Oliver Cromwell. Of course, there isn't a pub in Loughborough with that name, but the connection here is that the sign for the St Ives pub reaches out from the pub wall to the opposite side of the narrow road: at one time, the Bulls Head on High Street Loughborough did exactly the same - that is, before the road was widened in the late 1920s-early 1930s.

The Oliver Cromwell pub sign, St Ives

I'm sure both towns had a high proportion of pubs in days gone by though!

Both towns have markets: the St Ives charter goes back to 1202, whilst Loughborough's from 1221. Early trade would have been in wool:

About St Ives market

To the mid-left of photo, weights for weighing wool

More about the St Ives market

Here's how the cattle market was laid out in St Ives:

And this is part of Loughborough's cattle market:

Both towns have fairs: the St Ives fair was granted in 1107, Loughborough's in 1221. These aren't quite the dates that are displayed on the town's history panel in St Ives, but are listed elsewhere.  

St Ives history panel

St Ives history panel

In the St Ives museum there were some lovely clay pipes on display: these would have been similar to those found near what is now Wilko.

Clay pipes in the Norris Museum, St Ives

In 1769 John Wesley preached in the Market Place in Loughborough, and in St Ives in 1774.

Information board about John Wesley preaching in St Ives

St Ives history panel 

Whilst walking around the outskirts of the town, I spotted what used to be a butchers shop, now the offices of a local architecture firm, which had some beautiful tiling, which reminded me of the butchers that used to be on Moor Lane:

Butchers on Moor Lane Loughborough during demolition September 2013

Heading towards the town, I was surprised to find that St Ives was home to a property called Burleigh House, clearly not a patch on our Burleigh Hall though!! 

Burleigh House, St Ives

And their George Yard, albeit nicely painted, did not have an entrance to a pub called James' Vaults!

The George Yard, St Ives

Loughborough's George Yard

St Ives celebrated Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee by erecting a drinking fountain on Broadway in the middle of the town, called the Jubilee Memorial, with a polished granite column on a Portland stone base. The fountain in Loughborough, the Fearon fountain,  was given by the Rev'd Henry Fearon in celebration of the first piped water supply in 1872, and has polished Aberdeen granite columns. Loughborough celebrated the diamond jubilee with the creation of the Memorial Baths in Queen's Park, now the Charnwood Museum.

The Jubilee Memorial, St Ives

Re-dedication of the Fearon Fountain, Loughborough

Memorial Baths, now Charnwood Museum, Queen's Park, Loughborough

The oldest building in St Ives is the Priory Barn dating from 1320: the oldest building in Loughborough is the Old Rectory on Rectory Place, which dates back to 1228.

St Ives history panel

The Old Rectory, Loughborough

The oldest house in St Ives is the Manor House which was built around 1590. The Manor House in Loughborough (now an Italian restaurant) was built about 1477.

St Ives history panel

Loughborough's former Manor House

The railway came to St Ives in 1847, but had already come to Loughborough in 1840-1.

St Ives history panel

The war memorial in St Ives is a tall, thin monument, but totally unlike our own, which is a 153foot tall carillon tower.

The War Memorial, St Ives

The Carillon War Memorial, Loughborough

So, most towns had plenty of pubs, and also a number of banks, but how different the same bank can be when in a different town. Here's some examples, from St Ives and Loughborough:

NatWest, St Ives

NatWest, Loughborough

Lloyds Bank, St Ives

Lloyds Bank, Loughborough (ok, part of it!)

The other major difference in style comes with the Corn Exchange in St Ives, and what was the Corn Exchange, but is now the Town Hall in Loughborough.

Corn Exchange, St Ives

Loughborough Town Hall, formerly the Corn Exchange

And it is at this point that I must leave you now! So many other things to write about, but time has beaten me! Just one last note: the Carillon Tower and War Memorial Museum is closed until November 2018 for refurbishment.

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2018). Finding Loughborough everywhere. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2018/04/finding-loughborough-everywhere.html  [Accessed 8 April 2018]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne

        

Old Bleach Yard

Today I was lucky enough to be able to attend the opening up of the Old Bleach Yard!

If you know Loughborough, you are probably familiar with Angel Yard in Market Place, as being the original home of Wills and Hepworth, the publishers of Ladybird books, or maybe The George Yard, at one time home to James' Vaults. Yards like this, as well as courts, were very common in the Loughborough of old, but have changed over the years as new developments have replaced them.

The Old Bleach Yard is the path leading down by the side of the vacuum cleaner shop and The Moon and Bell (or Atherstone House) in Ward's End. For many years I used to buy my birthday cards in the pine shop that used to be on the left towards the bottom, but of late I have had little reason to go down there. The yard ends with a wall, and some concrete garages, with the old Clarke's dyeworks to the right. 

Well, I say this, but now the area has been transformed, the garages and wall knocked down and the pathway opened up into the Granby Street car park, with the aim of making it easier for folk who've parked there to come directly to the wonderful Ward's End, Devonshire Square, Bedford Square shopping area.

There is so much history associated with this area, I don't know what to highlight!! Obviously, Clarkes Dyeworks has played a very important part here, and I blogged quite some time ago about the Clarke family, and about some of the places, like The Gables, Park Street and Park Road where members of the family lived. The Woodbrook which runs through Queen's Park and across Granby Street was also important to the dyeing and bleaching industry. As you can probably tell from the name of this yard, there was also a bleach works, that went hand-in-hand with the dyeworks.

The cattle market used to take place near the opening of the Old Bleach Yard onto Ward's End, before it moved into what is now the Granby Street car park, evidence of which is still there in the form of the ring of stones near the entrance. Also, somewhere in the vicinity was the Drill Hall where the TAs used to meet (don't quote me on that: it might not have been the TA!!)

Just up the road from the entrance to the yard is The Orange Tree pub, previously the Wheatsheaf, and behind this a yard where Henry Moore (the spa ornament maker, not the sculptor!!) lived and worked on fashioning alabaster ornaments (I blogged about this a while ago, too!)

Just down the road from the yard is Devonshire Square, an area that has recently been rejuvenated with a colourful mural depicting local scenes, and created by Silent Hobo (subject of an earlier blogpost).

Whilst I was in town, I looked around Ward's End and took note of the many new shops that have opened in the area, like the Deli at 58, a new coffee shop, and a relatively new florists. Standing cheek by jowl with old-established businesses like George Hill's and Kent Stevenson, I'm sure this new link between the car park and Ward's End will encourage more shoppers to visit the area.

To end, here's some photos of today's event.