W is for Waves Wheatsheaves and Weedon the Architects

I simply can’t decide between these choices for the Letter W, so let's cover them all!

So, Harry Weedon’s architectural practice was the one favoured by Oscar Deutsch to design his Odeon cinemas. Arthur J. Price was one of the architects in the practice, and it was he who designed Loughborough’s original Odeon on Baxter Gate, most recently a Beacon Bingo, and now in the process of being renovated.

The Art Deco style was rather influenced by the designs of things of travel and speed – like the Mallard train built in 1938, which broke the speed record for steam locos in the summer of that year; like Babs the racing car which broke the speed record on Pendine Sands in 1926 with J.G. Parry Thomas in the driving seat; and like the popularity of the cruise ships. Hence the building designs that almost mimicked the shape and style of the cruise liner, or included waves, or wave-like patterns in their ornamentation. Perhaps you might stand where Market Place joins High Street and look at the amusement arcade, which if you get the right angle, looks like the front of an ocean liner. Plus, its ornamentation is decidedly wavey - and the central panel almost looks like the letter W!

A similar ocean liner feel comes from the row of shops on Market Street, and they too have waves. These are above the windows at first floor level of the blocks either side of Party Pieces, although these almost look like eyelashes!

There are also some waves above the windows on the first floor of the row of buildings on the right-hand side of the former Ramada Hotel (previously the King's Head), although they do look rather more like window pelmets!

 

And my final choice for W is wheatsheaves! No, not the Jam Garden, but the architectural motifs that we can see on the former Burton Tailoring store. They are keeping well out of the way of the lions, and can be found on the outside pillars of the building, at first-floor level.

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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.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). W is for Waves, Wheatsheaves, and Weedon the Architects. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/w-is-for-waves-wheatsheaves-and-weedon.html  [Accessed 26 April 2025]

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O is for Odeon

Well, I thought long and hard about whether or not to write about Occupations, Ostlers, and Osier Peelers, but in the end decided on an all-time favourite, Loughborough’s Odeon!! But which one?!

If you’ve arrived in Loughborough around 2009 or later, you’ll know that our Odeon is on Cattle Market, sandwiched between a NatWest Bank and a nail bar. But, as I suggested, it only became on Odeon around 2009.

Loughborough’s original Odeon, on Baxter Gate, opened in November 1936, despite there already being two cinemas in the town. Oscar Deutsch for whom the cinema was built, had opened his first cinema at Brierley Hill near Dudley, in 1928, before starting the Odeon chain. There was much building of new cinemas across the country, and by 1937 there were probably about 250 Odeons.

Deutsch had a preferred partnership with the architectural practice of Harry Weedon (partly because they had been born near each other around the same time, and so probably knew each other) and it was Arthur J. Price from Weedon’s firm who actually designed our Odeon. In 1936, the Art Deco style had reached its streamline modèrne phase, and it is this that gives our Odeon its beautiful lines; that and the local Hathernware faience tiles with which it is clad, in a basket weave pattern, with highlights of black and green.

The Odeon opened showing the film ‘Mr Deeds Goes to Town’ starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur, and directed by Frank Capra. The first manager of the Odeon was Clarence George Starkey, who had come straight from being the manager at the Rialto Cinema in Briggate, Leeds. This opening was a month too late to play host to the Jarrow Marchers, who were given free seats at one of Loughborough’s other cinemas, when they arrived in Loughborough from Nottingham, on their way to London.

That other cinema was the New Empire on Cattle Market. It had originally opened in 1914, advertised as The Empire, and had had a bit of a refurb in 1929. However, perhaps sensing that the competition was hotting up, the owner, Charles Knight Deeming (who also owned Loughborough’s other cinema, The Victory, the Regent Theatre, and cinemas in nearby Coalville), the Empire had a major extension and refurb, which led to the wonderful Art Deco façade we see today. Its local Hathernware tiles complemented by a striking angular tower, and green and yellow repeated motif. Deeming must have been very proud to host the Jarrow Marchers in his New Empire Cinema!

Later, around 1954, the New Empire was sold to the Essoldo Chain, before being sold to the Tigon Group who named it the Classic for a while, before becoming the Curzon! Meanwhile, over on Baxter Gate, the Odeon became the Classic around 1964, before closing as a cinema in 1974, and firstly became a Mecca Bingo, then a Beacon Bingo, before closing its doors permanently. And so, our Odeon might have been our only remaining cinema, until the General Hospital was demolished and the Cineworld Cinema opened in 2016.      

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This post is one in a series of posts for the ‘April A-Z Blogging Challenge’

 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2024). O is for Odeon. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/04/o-is-for-odeon.html [Accessed 17 April 2024]

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.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne