England’s oldest working cinema to shut its doors

The Electric Cinema closed its doors yesterday, bringing to an end the operations of England’s oldest working cinema.

Organisers of the city’s Flatpack Festival, which has used the venue for 18 years, understand that a property developer is looking to “demolish most of Station Street – except for the Grade II listed Old Rep Theatre – to make way for a fifty-storey apartment block”.

First opened in 1908 and rebuilt in 1937, the cinema was built in a converted taxi rank in Station Street and showed its first film on 27 December 1909.

It is now ran by the Markwick family, which have made the decision to close the building, as its 88-year lease will finish at the end of March.