The Pavilion or 'Ranters’ Chapel
A Ranters’ (Primitive Methodist ) Chapel was opened for worship here in 1838, later in 1880 it was replaced by the St.John’s Methodist Chapel in St Owen street. The old chapel subsequently housed a Salvation Army barracks, It may also have housed the first St James’s School, although an undated map of St Owen Street, thought to be c1870, shows both the Chapel and a school about 120 yards nearer the town centre. The school and the Salvation Army may have occupied the two buildings concurrently.
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In 1917 it became known as The Kinema, when, according to the Hereford Times; city councillors approved plans for a new 270-seat picture house in the former Salvation Army hall, despite the objections from one city magistrate F.H. Merrick who claimed that crime films were the cause of many juvenile offences. The Kinema’s war time programme aimed ‘to relieve the tension under which operatives [at the munitions factory in Rotherwas] live and work’ as well as soldiers on leave, according to the Hereford Times.
The Kinema was renamed the Pavilion Cinema in 1923 and taken over a year later by one Reginald Maddox. He also presented film shows at the town’s Garrick Theatre and Kemble Theatre so it is perhaps not surprising that he had closed the Pavilion Cinema by 1926. |
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After closure of the Cinema, the Pavilion building hosted a Co-op grocery store. then for a while it was a Launderette and in 2021, became a Dentist’s surgery.
