Embassy around the time it closed in 1981.

The building in September 2001

Construction begins in 2007 on the demolished site of the Embassy auditorium. The foyer area has become a café.

Photos: David Fisher, Terra Media

Hove Cinematograph Theatre (1911-1922)
Tivoli Cinema (1922-1948)
Embassy Cinema (1948-1981)

1 Western Road, Hove
operated c1912-1981

1911 September 4 A planning application is submited to Hove Council to convert the former Little Western Arms pub (built 1835), which most recently had been the Belvedere Club and Tea Rooms, designed by Alfred Carden. The client is E W Dinnick.
1911 October 5 The planning application is approved by Hove Council.
1912 January 31 A cinematograph exhibition licence is granted to Martin Waters, the company director. Opens for screening Monday to Saturday. It opens for screening Monday to Saturday. The auditorium extends to the rear, essentially as a simple rectangular room with a raked floor, making use of the downward slope of Little Western Street. The screen is at the extreme rear of the building. The three side doors can be opened at the end of the performance to allow the audience to exit more quickly into the side street than they would if they all had to pass through the narrow front entrance. Access to the projection box is via a ladder near the screen and a walkway across the roof.
1912 March 5 A planning application for a revised seating plan by Alfred Carden is submitted to Hove Council.
1912 December 19 A planning application for a gallery is submitted to Hove Council. The client is R Mitchell.
1913 January 2 Plans for addition of the gallery are approved by Hove Council.
1914 The toilet in the yard is described by the borough's medical officer as 'very foul and without a supply of water'.
1916 June 1 The cinema is offered for sale as a going concern by estate agents Stringer & Dinnick (115 Western Road, Brighton) with a guide price of £700.
1916 Acquired by two local businessmen John Harris (42 Lansdowne Place) and Joseph Cohen (3 Sillwood Road) and may have been renamed the Tivoli at this time.
1917 June Re-licensed to James Clark Watson.
1917 October Re-licensed to William Denos.
1919 May Acquired by George Beyfus of Tivoli Enterprises (Hove) Ltd.
1922 Renamed Tivoli Cinema. Beyfus acquires the nearby Picturedrome, which becomes the Scala.
1925 Acquired by Clifford Victor Maclean Smart.
1927 March 28 Acquired by J Goldberg.
1928 November A new orchestra under Miss P Penrose, plays at all performances except on Fridays, when there is just a piano.
1929 August 12 ‘Two short British talkies’ are advertised.
1929 November Converted to GB-Kalee sound system. Last silent film: Abel Gance's Napoléon, first talkie: The Singing Fool.
c1930 Owned by Mrs L Reith Fellows (who also owns the King's Cliff Cinema in Kemp Town at this time).
1931 Two changes weekly. Prices 6d-1s 10d.
1932 An optical sound system is installed. Prices 7d-1s 10d.
1934 Prices 6d and 1s. 1936 In response to the refurbishment of the nearby Curzon, the Tivoli is redecorated, with new projectors, new carpets, new seats with padded arm rests and, at the front of house, a new canopy and revolving door.
1946 November 2 Closed while a new, larger projection box is constructed with access from front of house, to replace the previous one, which was condemned as a health and safety risk.
1946 December 26 Re-opens.
1948 350 seats, prices 10d and 1s 9d, continuous performances, booked at hall; proscenium 20ft.
1948 Acquired by Harry Jacobs. Jacobs also owned the Curzon at this time.
1950 April Land acquired behind the cinema is used to extend the auditorium by 60 feet.
1950 May 15 Re-opens with the name Embassy Cinema; 398 seats; Walturdaw sound system.
1953 Prices 1s-2s 8d
1957 Prices 1s-2s 9d; two changes weekly
1961 Prices 1s 6d-3s
1967 Acquired by Miles Byrne, booked at Byrne House, 2 St John's Road, Burgess Hill.
1979 Planning permission to split the building into a gambling club and smaller cinema is refused, so Byrne looks to take over the Brighton Film Theatre.
1981 end March Closed. Final film: Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again.

• It was briefly a music venue (it was apparently closed as such after fights at a gig by The Jam) and then became the Black Cat bingo club until the late 1980s. It was later used, still virtually unchanged from its cinema layout, as a pine furniture supermarket and then as a Laser Warriors adventure game site and for other retail and leisure purposes. It then became an amusement arcade and closed again. Plans to turn it into a lap-dancing club in 2003 were rejected after concerted opposition. The entrance area became a coffee house in 2006. The auditorium was demolished in July 2007 and replaced by housing.

• Although no longer in use as a cinema when photographed here (December 2001), the design of the building can still be seen clearly. It is fairly typical of the cinema buildings in the early silent era. Patrons followed a corridor from the front door to the entrance to the auditorium past the box office on the right. Offices were on the upper floors. The auditorium began at the rear of the three-storey section, with the projection box adjacent to the entrance to the stalls. [Incidentally, the sign marking the boundary between the old boroughs of Brighton and Hove can be see at first-floor level on the side wall.]
      The auditorium extended to the rear, essentially as a simple rectangular room with a raked floor. The screen was at the extreme rear of the building. The three side doors could be opened at the end of the performance to allow the audience to exit more quickly into the side street than they would if they all had to pass through the narrow front entrance.

Brighton cinema directory
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