Coventry's 'Olympic' cinema, Holyhead Road, 1949
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:59 pm
In 1949, in the wake of the last London Olympics held in 1948, Coventry City Council granted permission for an all-new cinema to be built at the juncion of Holyhead Road and Kingsbury Road by the Olympic Theatre Company (whoever they were) and called the 'Olympic'. The cinema was to have seating for 1400, the latest crowd safety features and modern parking. It would have been far and away the biggest and most modern complex until the Showcase Cinema complex was built many years later in Walsgrave.
This map shows the shows the position of the cinema and parking arrangements relative to the Holyhead Road and Kingsbury Road, click to view full size:
These drawings show the general layout of the cinema and its facilities, again click to view full-size:
Nothing ever came of the proposal and there is nothing in council records to suggest why. It may simply have been that the euphoria which accompanied the 1948 Olympics had already worn off by 1949.