Cyril Haearn wrote:Why does spoons have so many old cinemas? One would have thought conversion would be difficult with sloping floors
I guess they are mostly old-style cinemas with just one big theatre, right?
What else do they have, old copshops, old train stations?
On cinemas, possibly because it's difficult to find another use for such buildings so spoons has a clearer run at them. But they desserve our thanks nevertheless for preserving them. My local spoons is an old cinema. Shut as a cinema decades ago, then kept in use as a bingo hall, then when they departed it was empty and semi wrecked looking for a long time. At one time it was in danger of being demolished.
Its now listed and spoons has treated the building well.
A while ago a cinema chain was interested in taking over the lease but they gave up as they wanted to make changes to the building that wouldn't have been allowed under its listed status.
So it's time as a cinema is gone and us lucky folks can sit in its great interior drinking wonderful cheap beer - what's not to like?
Cop shops? New Malden.
Used to live there - always seemed a somewhat gloomy building but maybe that was because my experience of it was going in to present my documents after a bit of dodgy driving.
Not sure about outdoor seating with a bike but there are sheffield stands directly outside.
After the spoons conversion and opening up it is remarkably light and airy:
https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pub-histo ... new-maldenWhich raises another great point about spoons - those often very interesting, nay downright surprising, local history boards you can peruse as you recover from your peddaling, fill up for the onward journey.
A quick scan of that one above for instance tells me that Diana Rigg is an ex resident - before my time unfortunately.
