Art deco cinema

(Disclaimer: Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else following in my footsteps. Under UK law, trespass without force is a civil offence. I never break into a place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, as this would be morally wrong and intrusive, I never take any items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose location or means of entry.  I leave the building as I find it and only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the building.

Back when Covid-19 was looming in the distance and nobody was taking it seriously yet, what with the fact that the media has been crying wolf with apocalypse pandemics for years, I took a trip to scratch this itch. Initially I planned to go somewhere else on this day, to another itch that needs scratching out in Wales, but then I got this message informing me that this place was finally accessible, but that the means of entry was about as subtle as the holocaust and would almost certainly be sealed up again fairly soon. I prioritised this. Wales can wait. Wales kinda has to wait now, seeing as it's illegal to go there at the moment.

This is an old, disused cinema rotting away in Shropshire, remembered fondly by the older generation, but perhaps more associated with household retail by the younger ones. Fortunately photos do exist that show it in its former glory.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

So as you can see, the old cinemas name was Clifton. However if you're reading this from Walsall, well firstly I don't blame you- if I lived in Walsall I'd be looking up better places on the internet too. Secondly, you might find this familiar but be expecting a different name, and thats because the Clifton was built as a replica of a pre-existing cinema.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

I promise you, these are not the same building. Quite why they decided to replicate the Rosum when they built the Clifton, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was doing well at the time.

The Clifton opened in 1937 with Captain January, a film staring Shirley Temple, and the Big Noise, staring Alistair Sim, not to be mistaken for the Laurel & Hardy feature nearly a decade later.

Internally I wasn't sure what to expect. Prior to its current state of emptiness, the Clifton was used by Dunelm, so there might not be much left of the former cinema. However I've seen certain establishments use maybe 30% of the building for their business, and leave the remnants of the cinema sealed off and untouched. Would I get that lucky twice?

Slipping in via the stairway, things looked promising. The building is in a glorious state of decay.

This hallway was behind the seating area. Just down the hall I'd find the best parts of any derelict building, the toilets.

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

And look, toilet paper! Well it's nice to know there are some places that the Covid Looters didn't pillage.

This is all that's left of the main cinema seating area. However, in spite of it appearing straightforward the layout confuses me a bit. It appears that this is a tiered seating area, minus the seats, but if the screen was on the bottom wall, wouldn't that render the huge Dunelm downstairs somewhat redundant? I highly doubt that it was just a big empty expanse while people watched films up here.

My guess is that these were upper balcony seats overlooking the downstairs portion, and that when Dunelm moved in they added a new wall that cut off this portion. I might be wrong, but unfortunately I've been unable to find any old internal photos. What's nice is that up here we can still see the original ceiling.

So I did some digging, and there was an upstairs seating area to the old cinema Those who ever sat downstairs recall seeing the occasional rainfall of fag ash, back when smoking indoors was acceptable. Some recall being spat on or having things flicked at them from the upper level. Those in the know sat under the upstairs seats, where they were out of range.

In spite of these horror stories, the majority of people have only positive things to say about the Clifton. For several decades it was here that people saw some pretty famous movies for the first time. Movies such as Star Wars, Grease and even Snow White amassed huge queues of people going out through the front door and down the street. Some people would recall queuing in vain, as they never actually gained entry and had to come back another day.

The cinema also had a Saturday Morning Kids Club where people recall seeing Flash Gordon and episodes of Batman. Children in the 1950s came here on school trips to watch the Ten Commandments as part of religious education, and more bizarrely schools took the children here to watch Watership Down in the 1970s.

That sounds like a superb school trip, taking a bunch of seven year olds to watch rabbits maul each other, but back then we had a bit of a backbone in regards to what we could expose children to. A character died every other episode in Animals of Farthing Wood, and those of us who watched it turned out mostly okay.

The movies shown here also had intervals, during which snacks and ice cream would be served, and renovations in 1979 added a bar and cafe area, the remnants of which are no longer visible, sadly.

But one particularly bizarre but hilarious testimony was that the national anthem would get played after a film, and anyone who was still inside when it started would have to stand around and sing it, so there would always be a bit of a rush to get out after a film ended.
It sounds very strange, and must surely be an archaic practice from decades gone by. I can't imagine such a thing happening in a cinema today.

But anyway, from here stairs lead up or stairs lead down. I'm going to head up first, because if any aspects of the cinema are preserved, it'll be upstairs.

So this would have been where all the projection and lighting equipment was. Sadly none of it remains, but it's nice to see that the rooms basic structure hasn't been altered. We can still tell what this used to be used for. This overlooks the main area, so we have a good view of it too.

My theory is that the wall at the bottom was added later, and if it weren't there we'd get a nice view down to Dunelm, where the screen would have been, along with all of the downstairs seats.

The cinema originally closed in 1981, with Hot Bubblegum and Going Steady being the final screenings. This proved to be a brief hiatus for the Clifton, as it reopened briefly in 1987, following what I hear was a period of retail use. However, its revival was short lived, and it closed its doors one final time around eighteen months later.

There's an old photo that shows people protesting its closure... by blocking the way for anyone who wanted to watch Mary Poppins...

(Photo not mine, obviously)

And another photo exists which allegedly shows the staff of the Clifton together on the final day that they were open. I don't know how true that is, but it's sure to trigger some nostalgia.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Personally, as far as the cinema goes, it's these upper levels that I like the most. It seems that they're the most unchanged, altered only by natural decay.

And best of all, we have.... rooftop access!!!

It's pretty cool up here. The streets weren't actually as dead as they seem, but I waited before taking pictures. Long time readers of this blog will know that rooftopping is best done at night.

There's a chair up on the roof. It appears to be the same design as the one we saw on the stairs, albeit exposed to the elements a bit more.

Anyway, back inside we go...

This stairway leads down through the centre of the large tiered seating area, and was presumably the way people would go to get to those upstairs seats. However from this point on, things get a little less derelict, and a little more Dunelmy.

But before we go down that final stairwell into an disused retailer, there's a few more upstairs rooms to check out, and I also want to plug my friends video. Joe and Casi came here a couple of days after me, and their video can be found on Youtube. But to save you looking for it, I'll add it here:

And sadly, as they come through this particular area, if you pause their video at 3:01 you'll see a door that they missed, and as I watched the video I internally screamed "Noooo" as they did so, because I know they would have loved the room that it led to. Check it out...

Vintage movie posters!

Death Race 2000 came out in 1975.

The Hindenburg came out in 1975.

All of the movies pictured on these walls came out in the 1970s, which makes me think that these have been on the walls for that long, dating right back to when this place was used as a cinema. This means that of all the rooms in this entire building, this is the best preserved. This is a lovely little time capsule.

The presence of the safe in here would suggest that this was an office, but the preserved posters would suggest that nobody has used it since.

Whereas this room was allegedly decorated after the Cliftons closure, when the place opened as some kind of laser quest, with a nifty red and green colour scheme. It seems that when the laser quest closed down, this room was left as it is too. It's strange that different rooms reflect different eras. It's almost as if Dunelm didn't use half of it.

The labels in this room suggest that Dunelm used this for storage, but the red and green colour scheme suggests that this room was also used during the laser quest days.

And finally, here we have the more modern stairway down into Dunelm, where all of the Cliftons character was stripped away in favour of consumerism.

Dunelm snatched the building up in the 1990s, at the height of a property boom, and gave it a rather extensive redesign. And I'll be honest, I hate it. I don't hate Dumelm. I think there is a place for Dunelm in this world. I just don't think that the place is an art deco cinema. Just look what they've done to it.

The counter is still there.

Okay, so going back to my theory of the architectural modifications, look at where the ceiling is. At the bottom of the ramp, it's much much higher.

On the other side of that wall above the ramp is that tiered seating area, meaning that prior to that wall being built, it would have overlooked this area, so I guess the cinema screen would have been right here-

This is Dunelms back door now. The entire area down here has absolutely no indication of the Cliftons former glory at all, and that is sad. I bet it looked great.

Dunelm closed its doors in 2012, and the Clifton has sat empty ever since. There was a campaign to raise money and restore it to its former use, but ultimately this resulted in the opening of another cinema elsewhere, complete with art gallery and cafe. It sounds good, but it still leaves this building rotting away.

Dunelms staff areas are still here too, decorated with patronising authorative signs about customer service and looking presentable.

The fact that someone has doodled on the customer service picture, and corrected the spelling, indicates that the staff had some sense of humour in the midst of their condescending management.

Here are the staff toilets.

Wow. They really don't want anyone to use these urinals.

There's still toilet paper here too!

Here's the staff cloakroom.

Some of the staff lockers are still locked, which lends itself to the imagination beautifully.

Finally, we have a cellar. It's bright red, likely left as it was since the buildings days as a cinema, but I'm not certain. The floor sure looks pretty retro though!

There's this padlocked little cupboard too!

But that's all I've got. There were talks of demolishing much of the building in 2017, while keeping the art deco frontage, and replacing the rest with flats. However eighteen months after this was announced the building was back on the market. Its future remains uncertain, but whatever happens to it, I hope this awesome building gets treated with respect and put to decent use. I love this place. I'd like to see it have a bright future.

As for this blog, next time I'm doing a rooftop one, and then a military one. It'll be cool. In the meantime, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and Follow my Twitter.

Thanks for reading!