Llantwit Major The Cinema Years. Llantwit Major had a cinema from 1939 until 1970. Building started in 1938, as seen in the photograph taken from the top is Stallcourt Avenue. It’s position can be located , in the insert, by being just one shop away from the Lloyds Bank building, now sadly closed.
It all started when in the 1930’s Sidney Harvard showed films in the Town Hall on a Saturday morning for children and for adults in the evening. With the opening of RAF Athan and the increase in the population it was decided that Llantwit needed a cinema. The outcome was that a family of cinema owners called Issac built the “Strand Cinema” with a seating capacity of 916 and it opened on the 29th April 1939 with the film “Gunga Din” staring Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Sidney Harvard was offered the managers job, but as he was employed in installing electricity into Llantwit houses he turned it down, eventually he took the job on in 1948 and stayed there until the late fifties. The cinema was also used as a dance venue and for various local events such as the Carnival Dance. Due to the increase in television channels and a subsequent reduction in customers, the cinema was sold in the late 60’s and demolished to make way for the shopping precinct. If they had managed to hold on, what a different place Llantwit would be now, maybe with a multi screen cinema venue.
Angel Inn
On Wine Street at the far end was a pub called the Angel Inn. The image shows the Angel Inn in c1886 when David Jenkins and his wife Bertha Jenkins ran it. It’s possible that the photo shows David Jenkins and his wife. Almost 100 years later the Angel Inn was being...