Not so ‘Roaring Twenties’
- GVHeritage Groups
- Dec 2, 2024
- 1 min read
by the First ResidentsBS3 Heritage Group for Futures Past
One of the most popular entertainment locations for our residents in the 1920s was Bedminster Town Hall on Cannon St.
The building started out in the late 19th century as a civic meeting hall for community, religious and political gatherings, hosting 1500 people. By the 1920s it had become the Town Hall Kimera, offering “the best in picturedom”, according to an advertisement in the Bristol and Avonmouth Weekly News. Having presented ‘picture exhibitions’ at the turn of the century, by the start of the twenties, Town Hall was the largest of three picture houses owned by Mr E.F. Harris in Bedminster, with a 1,000 seating capacity. All showings throughout the twenties decade were ‘silent’, but as you can see, very popular. To cope with the demand for entertainment there were three changes of programme a week and often two ‘houses’ a night. One source tells of fights in the street outside just to get in.
For those too impatient to wait, they could have walked down East Street to the Stoll Picture Theatre, a grandiose entertainment building that had started out life in 1911 as the imposing Bedminster Hippodrome.
However, live entertainment gave way within a couple of years to the moving image and by 1915 it had become another cinema, its principal feature, a specially built ‘fine orchestral organ’ to accompany the moving if ‘silent’ images.
