In the fifth part of his look at the development of entertainment in Durham, David Simpson recalls the heyday of the city's cinemas.

Cinemas in Durham were not confined to the city centre and many of the neighbouring villages had their own "picture houses".

Langley Moor, Meadowfield, Wheatley Hill, Bowburn, Langley Park, Esh Winning, Sacriston and Coxhoe all had at least one cinema each. In fact, some villages had as many as three.

The village cinemas often had different licensing arrangements to those in the city. For many years, Sunday showings were banned in the city but not in the surrounding villages, so a visit to an out-of-town cinema became common practice for the city's residents on the Sabbath.

On the outskirts of the city, the Gilesgate Moor area was privileged to have two cinemas in its midst.

The first was the 318-seat Crescent Cinema, in Sunderland Road. It was built by a butcher, George Lamb, and opened in June 1927. There was no balcony for customers wanting to pay extra for higher seats.

The projectionist had the loftiest view in the cinema but even he had to reach his projection room by means of a ladder.

In 1941, the cinema came under new management and was renamed The Rex. It showed older films, already seen elsewhere, and Westerns were especially popular.

The Rex closed in January 1958 when the last film shown was an action-packed movie called Eagle Squadron.

For a time, the building served as a bingo hall but the projection house remained intact until about a decade ago. The old cinema is now occupied by a tool hire company but still has a distinctive facade that betrays its original purpose.

The other Gilesgate cinema was The Majestic, a substantially larger cinema in Sherburn Road.

It is now a club and bingo hall and, although it served for a time as a furniture warehouse, it still retains its name.

The cinema opened on August 29, 1938, when the admission prices were about sixpence for a seat in the stores or ninepence if reserved. Balcony seats cost a shilling a time, or a shilling and threepence if reserved.

The Majestic closed as a cinema on December 4, 1961, but technically retained its licence until 1970.

When The Majestic opened on the outskirts of Durham in 1938 there was only one purpose- built cinema in the city centre. This was the Globe, in North Road. It opened in 1913 and continued to operate until August 1957, after which it served for a time as a furniture shop. Part of its building can still be seen at the head of Castle Chare, near a Chinese restaurant.

The second city centre cinema to be built in Durham was The Palladium, in Claypath. It opened on March 18, 1929, with Rex Ingram's Garden of Allah.

Its proprietors were Messrs Holliday, Thompson, Gibson and Drummond, who were later responsible for opening The Majestic.

Mr Holliday, chairman of the directors, was a Durham City Alderman and nephew of John Holliday, who had opened a theatre at Framwellgate in 1884.

It is interesting that the live theatrical possibilities of The Palladium were not entirely overlooked. The cinema opened for both "film and theatrical purposes", but in practice it operated exclusively as a cinema.

It shut in 1976 and, like the Majestic and Rex, served for a time as a bingo hall. In 1986, a number of its seats were purchased at just over \'a31 a time and installed in the City Theatre, a small theatre in Back Silver Street, behind the Market Place, operated by Durham Dramatic Society.

Durham's best-known cinema - on the site of the Old Miner's Hall in North Road - opened in 1934. This building, with its distinctive tower and green copper dome had been vacated by the miners in 1915 and was the most imposing structure in the street.

It opened as the Regal Cinema on the March 27, 1934, and incorporated a ballroom.

The Mayor of Durham, James Fowler, performed the opening ceremony and it was clearly intended to be Durham's premier picture house.

The Old Miners' Hall remained a cinema for almost 60 years, but changed management on several occasions, each time acquiring a different name.

From 1947 it was The Essoldo, changing to The Classic in 1972 and The Cannon in 1979.

The Cannon closed in 1990, but reopened the following year as the Robins Cinema and remained the Robins until its closure this year, despite a campaign to save it.

There is no longer a dedicated cinema in Durham City, although the role has been fulfilled by the Gala Theatre.

The Gala is home to live drama and comedy as well as a cinema, and it is perhaps not altogether surprising that a theatre should fulfil the role of a cinema in a city such as Durham. As we have discovered over the past five weeks, stage and screen are an almost inseparable aspect of Durham City history.

I am greatly indebted to David Williams for sharing his expertise on Durham's cinemas. His book Cinema in a Cathedral City 1896-2003 will be published in the autumn.

If you have memories or old photographs of Durham, including old pubs, shops, cinemas or well-known personalities, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. E-mail david.simpson@nne.co.uk, or telephone (01325) 505098