Scottish Cinemas and Theatres
Cinema City and Beyond...
Welcome to the Scottish Cinemas project, a volunteer-led, non
profit site dedicated to recording and archiving our historic
cinema architectural heritage - an often overlooked part of
our social history. We try to provide a photographic and
historical record of all Scottish cinema buildings, including
those now unrecognisable or otherwise highly altered over the
years. Cinemas that have now been demolished are also featured
where photographs exist and copyright allows us to use them.
There are now over 1,140 cinemas in the database, of
which we have images of over 800 buildings in over 250
different places around Scotland!
We welcome contributions of information, photographs, memories
or anything else related to Scotland's cinemas - if you have
any material you'd like to share, please do get in touch.
Looking for your local cinema? This list of over 250 cities, towns and villages all over Scotland is a great place to start.
A selection of cinema architecture related articles and stories, including archive and personal stories and memories.
A number of cinemas are listed for their special architectural and social heritage merit. Here we've listed the listed!
A list of known Scottish cinemas on the Buildings at Risk
Register for Scotland, and those recently saved - or
demolished.
Searchable online resource of over 1,140 of Scotland's cinema buildings, from 1902 to the present day.
About Us
Scottish Cinemas has been running since 2001, and was created by Gordon Barr and Gary Painter.
We run it entirely in our spare time (so please be
patient if we don't update things quickly!).
Talks & Walks
We have a selection of different talks - from 10 minutes to 2 hours covering the story of cinemas in Scotland.
We also run walking tours on request - ask
us for more information!
Gordon Barr works as the Architectural Heritage Fund Development Manager for Scotland. Before
joining the AHF in 2014, he was the Heritage Development
Manager for the multi-award-winning Maryhill Burgh
Halls project. Gordon has an academic and scientific
software development background. In 2011 he was shortlisted
for the Scottish Civic Trust's inaugural 'Civic Champion'
award.
Gary Painter studied history and archaeology at the University
of Glasgow and supported these studies with a part-time job in
the Odeon Cinema in Renfield Street. One night, one of the
senior projectionists showed him photos of the interior as it
once was, which set his industrial archaeology senses
twitching. Thus began a love affair with crawling around in
voids and peering through hatches to find forgotten remnants
of buildings much altered over the years. He now works as a
Stage Doorkeeper at Glasgow's Theatre Royal.
Both Gary and Gordon are Scottish caseworkers
and committee members of the Cinema Theatre
Association.
All rights reserved. Permission for use elsewhere normally granted, but please ask first!
No attempt is made to infringe any existing copyrights or trademarks. Please contact the editors in case of any queries.