The Cinema Museum is a museum in Kennington, London. Its collection was founded in 1986 by Ronald Grant and Martin Humphries, from their own private collection of cinema history and memorabilia. Its current building was once a workhouse where Charlie Chaplin lived as a child.
First established in 1986 in Raleigh Hall in Brixton, [1] the museum later moved to Kennington; [2] since 1998, it has been based at 2 Dugard Way in the London Borough of Lambeth, the administration block of the former Lambeth Workhouse, in a building owned by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. [3]
The workhouse has a link to cinema history as Charlie Chaplin lived there as a child when his mother faced destitution. The museum runs a programme of talks and events and is currently open by appointment for tours. [4]
Having survived a threat to its existence owing to the proposed sale of the building in 2011, the museum was engaged in efforts to secure its future with public funding. [2] The museum has been the subject of a documentary by The Guardian , [5] and a 2008 documentary by the Canadian film artist Mark Lewis. [6]
The museum's collection includes items relating to film production, film exhibition and the experience of cinema-going from the earliest days of cinema to the present. It holds examples of every gauge of film projector, professional and amateur, ever manufactured.
The museum holds a collection of early films by Mitchell and Kenyon, the Blackburn film production company, dating from 1899 to 1906. These films were featured at the Pordenone Cinema Muto (silent film festival) in 1997. [7]
According to Time Out , "The Cinema Museum in Lambeth boasts an idiosyncratic collection of film memorabilia, including posters, art deco cinema chairs, ushers' uniforms from the 1940s and '50s, tickets, ashtrays and popcorn cartons, as well as an archive boasting hundreds of books, an estimated one million plus photos and 17 million feet of film." [8] At its events volunteers regularly dress in original cinema attendants' costumes.
The museum seeks to celebrate all aspects of cinema and the moving image. From silent films shown in exactly the correct gauge and at the right speed using specially adapted projectors, to screenings of modern television culture. It is developing a growing reputation [9] for its eclectic range of events.
The cinema bar was rated the eighth-best pub in Kennington by readers of Londonist in 2013. [10]
It is located near Elephant and Castle and Kennington tube stations.
In 2017, it was announced that the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust which owns the building and leases it to the Museum, had decided to put the building up for sale on the open market. [11] A campaign was launched with support from actors and filmmakers such as Ken Loach, and a petition to keep the Museum at the site gained over 52,000 signatures. [12]
The developers who had bought the site gave the charity that runs the museum a period of time to buy the building and fundraising continues. [13]
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the Lambeth and St George's parishes of those boroughs respectively. It is located 1.4 miles (2.3 km) south of Charing Cross in Inner London and is identified as a local centre in the London Plan. It was a royal manor in the parish of St Mary, Lambeth in the county of Surrey and was the administrative centre of the parish from 1853. Proximity to central London was key to the development of the area as a residential suburb and it was incorporated into the metropolitan area of London in 1855.
Lambeth is a London borough in South London, England, which forms part of Inner London. Its name was recorded in 1062 as Lambehitha and in 1255 as Lambeth. The geographical centre of London is at Frazier Street near Lambeth North tube station, though nearby Charing Cross on the other side of the Thames in the City of Westminster is traditionally considered the centre of London.
King's College Hospital is a major teaching hospital and major trauma centre in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH". It is managed by King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It serves an inner city population of 700,000 in the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, but also serves as a tertiary referral centre in certain specialties to millions of people in southern England. It is a large teaching hospital and is, with Guy's Hospital and St. Thomas' Hospital, the location of King's College London School of Medicine and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. The chief executive is Dr Clive Kay. It is also the birthplace of Queen Camilla.
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The Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) was a museum of the history of cinema technology and media sited below Waterloo Bridge in London. It was opened on 15 September 1988 by Prince Charles and at the time, was the world's largest museum devoted entirely to cinema and television. The museum formed part of the cultural complex on the South Bank of the River Thames. MOMI was mainly funded by private subscription and operated by the British Film Institute. MOMI was closed in 1999, initially on a supposedly temporary basis, and with the intention of its being relocated to Jubilee Gardens nearby. Its permanent closure was announced in 2002.
Sean Martin is an Anglo-Irish writer and film director. He has written popular books on the Knights Templar and the Cathars, and appeared on History Channel documentaries such as Decoding the Past: The Templar Code and in Channel 5's Secrets of the Cross: The Trial of the Knights Templar.
Westminster Bridge Road is a road in London, England. It runs on an east–west axis and passes through the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.
Kennington Road is a long straight road, approximately a mile in length, in the London Borough of Lambeth in London, England, running south from Westminster Bridge Road to Kennington Park Road.
Croydon University Hospital, known from 1923 to 2002 as Mayday Hospital and from 2002 to 2010 as Croydon Hospital, is a large NHS hospital in Thornton Heath in south London, England run by Croydon Health Services NHS Trust. It is a District General Hospital with a 24-hour Accident and Emergency department. The hospital is based on a 19-acre (7.7 ha) site in Thornton Heath to the north of central Croydon.
University Hospital Lewisham is a teaching hospital run by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and serving the London Borough of Lewisham. It is now affiliated with King's College London and forms part of the King's Health Partners academic health science centre. It is situated on Lewisham High Street between Lewisham and Catford.
Prince's ward is an administrative division of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is located in the North of the borough, bounded by the River Thames on the west and Kennington Park Road on the east. It is made up of much of Kennington and Vauxhall.
The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located in what is now the historic district of Niles in the city of Fremont, CA. The museum is housed in the Edison Theater, a century-old Nickelodeon movie theater, just half a block from the former site of the Niles Essanay Studios where Broncho Billy and Charlie Chaplin made films in the 1910s. It is dedicated to preserving and showing silent films and their history.
Charles Spencer Chaplin Sr. was an English music hall entertainer. He achieved considerable success in the 1890s, and was the father of the actor and filmmaker Sir Charlie Chaplin.
ArtsLav was an arts venue located at Kennington Cross in Kennington, London, England. It started life as an underground Victorian gentlemen's public lavatory. It is now a listed and restored Kennington landmark used as a community arts facility, Artslav. Engineered by B. Finch and Co. in 1898. It went out of commission in 1988 during a period of public convenience closures in Lambeth.
The Lambeth Workhouse was a workhouse in Lambeth, London. The original workhouse opened in 1726 in Princes Road. From 1871 to 1873 a new building was constructed in Renfrew Road, Lambeth. The building was eventually turned into a hospital. The workhouse's former master's house and chapel are now occupied by the Cinema Museum which is a grade II listed building.
The Children's Day Hospital, or more properly, the Psychiatric Day Hospital for Children and their Families at 35 Black Prince Road, Vauxhall, London was a South London out-patient resource under the aegis of St Thomas' Hospital and the NHS between 1965 and 1990 when it closed. Coincidentally, its existence was co-terminous with that of the Inner London Education Authority, with whose 'Special Schools' service, based in nearby County Hall, there was occasional co-operation. The Day Hospital's distinction was to provide evidence-based treatment added to the Waldorf School system, combined with the prescription of newly developed antidepressant medication to children.
St Mary's Gardens is an 18th-century garden triangle in Central London. The "square" is in the London Borough of Lambeth and has an unusual triangular shape. Since 1968 in planning policy it is a Conservation Area. Three rows of houses front its communal green, granted Grade II listed status under the statutory protective and recognition scheme in 1981.
