Former Wallaw Cinema, Blyth, Northumberland
Former Wallaw Cinema, Blyth, Northumberland: proscenium viewed from front balcony
Globe Cinema, Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham
Globe Cinema, Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham: proscenium and light fountains from balcony
One of the admirable features of the J D Wetherspoon pub chain is that they’re kind to old buildings. I’ve previously written blog-articles celebrating their Tunbridge Wells Opera House and Palladium Cinema, Llandudno.
Thanks to Charles Hootons’ itinerary and excellent programme-notes for the Cinema Theatre Association tour ‘Silver Screens of Tyneside and Teeside’ (April 20th-23rd 2026), I’ve visited and learned about the Grade II listed Wallaw Cinema, Blyth, designed by Charles Alfred Harding of the Newcastle practice Percy Lindsay Browne, Son & Harding and opened on November 16th 1937.
The style of the brick and concrete exterior is the toned-down version of Art Deco that is termed Moderne, but the interior is more exciting with Art Deco detail in the staircase of the impressive foyer and a fine auditorium with plaster coves by Webster Davidson & Co Ltd of Sunderland and concealed lighting by Devereux Moody & Co Ltd of Newcastle. It originally seated 1,600.
The name “Wallaw” is derived from the name of its owner Walter Lawson whose Ashington-based cinema chain ran several picture houses in the area.
The Blyth Wallaw was tactfully subdivided in 1987 and refurbished in 1998, the year that it was listed, but it closed in 2004.
J D Wetherspoons took it on and celebrated its original intact architecture and decoration, and it opened as a pub on December 10th 2013 as The Wallaw. An original projector and a sample row of seats are exhibited in the foyer. It’s in good hands, thriving, and though it’s a pub you can clearly see it was a cinema.
Charles Hooton’s tour also took us to the Globe Cinema, Stockton-on-Tees, another magnificent Thirties cinema which is, after some vicissitudes, still a cinema.
The Globe was designed by the same architect as the Wallaw – Percy Lindsay Browne of Newcastle – and the interior plasterwork was by Webster Davidson & Co Ltd of Sunderland. The third cinema on the site, it opened on April 20th 1935 as a variety theatre. Its original seating capacity is variously recorded between 2,372 and 2,574.
The proscenium is 49ft 2in wide: the stage area is 39ft 2in deep and the grid sixty feet high. The foyer leads into the circle level, so the stalls and stage are below street level and the backstage get-in is three metres above the floor and has to be accessed by a lift.
The building was acquired by Associated British Cinemas in 1937 and rebranded as ABC in 1967. In the 1960s the Globe hosted big-ticket concerts featuring stars from Buddy Holly to Chuck Berry as well as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
It closed as a cinema in 1974 and, after a London Philharmonic Orchestra concert the following year, became a bingo hall. Bingo ended in 1997, and the building remained dark for over twenty years.
It could so easily have gone, but Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council resolved to restore it, at an eventual cost of £27.9 million, of which the National Lottery fund contributed £4.5 million.
The restoration, designed by SPACE Architects (whose Remaking Beamish project embraced the 1950 town including the Grand Cinema) and undertaken by Willmott Dixon Interiors (who also refurbished the Granada Cinema, Walthamstow in 2025): Globe Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees | Willmott Dixon.
The Globe reopened in 2021 and is now configured for a seated audience of 1,650, with capacity for 3,034 for standing events. A former bridalwear shop next door has become a stylish box-office and bar/café. The Globe is operated on a 25-year contract by the Ambassador Group.
It’s evident that even in a time of economic stagnation, local councils with vision – and enlightened operators like J D Wetherspoon and the Ambassador Group – can find funds to revive heritage cinema buildings that will pay their way by attracting people through their doors and enrich the local economy.