Penylan Cinema opened in 1914 as a 540 seat venue on the corner of Albany Road.
From 'Entertaining South Wales':
'[The cinema] was regarded as an especially fine architectural example of early cinema. The audience sat on one level, in a classical style auditorium which contained a domed roof decorated with eagles and the intials “P.C.” (Penylan Cinema?). This roof could be opened for ventilation. It opened on August 27th 1914, just one month after the outbreak of the Great War, and its opening advert proclaimed: “every patriot should patronise this British-owned and controlled cinema”. In the 1930s it became part of the Willis Cinemas chain, whose head office was in the house next door in Wellfield Road. In the post-war era the Globe specialised in “continental films”, usually subtitled, and was clumsily adapted for CinemaScope in the mid 1950s. Bingo was introduced for a short time in 1961, but this didn’t catch on and the Globe returned to films, gradually building up a strong student following for its mostly subtitled European films, mixing them with more family-friendly doublefeatures. The Globe closed on May 25th 1981, by which time the building had received a Grade II listing, though this preservation order was overturned on appeal at the end of 1986 and the building was demolished. The site was used for a group of shops, and a small studio cinema was incorporated on the first floor. It was named the Monroe and ran for a few years, at one point operated by Chapter Arts centre as a student cinema and then as a Bollywood cinema.'
The Globe is now a live music venue.
Meilyr Powel, RCAHMW, November 2020
Source:
'Entertaining South Wales - C', overthefootlights.co.uk, p.31