Essoldo Southend-on-Sea
Warrior Square,
Southend-on-Sea,
SS1 2JY
Warrior Square,
Southend-on-Sea,
SS1 2JY
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Just to clarify, when the Essoldo closed it was making money, but it was purchased by Keddies Stores (which fronted onto the High Street, adjacent to the Essoldo) for £35,000 and converted into Supa-Save, one of the town’s first supermarkets. Later, the building was demolished and Keddies store was extended over the site.
More recently, Keddies store has been demolished. A Travelodge hotel occupies the site facing Warrior Square.
I virtually lived in this cinema as a kid, and I was always enthralled by the lavish poster displays (particularly in the alleyway leading to the “other” box office and entrance, off the High Street) advertising wonderful American sci-fi and horror movies. I was 8 years old, and the X rating kept me out of Tarantula!, Night of the Blood Beast and Demons of the Swamp but my dad took me to see the A-rated Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs the Spider, The Brain Eaters, and Viking Women vs the Sea Serpent. And it was at the Essoldo in the early 1950s that I had my key, life-formative moviegoing experience when I saw Forbidden Planet, still my favourite film 60 years later.
I passed this cinema in the summer of 1962 and it was open showing ‘Cattle Empire’ with Joel McCrea.