The Welwyn Theatre, Parkway, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

Later - The Embassy Cinema

Above - The Exterior of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Academy Architecture and Architectural Review of 1929.

The Welwyn Theatre was situated on Parkway, Welwyn Garden City and first opened on the 27th of January 1928. The Theatre was built as a Cinema with Full Stage Facilities and designed by the Welwyn Garden City Architects Arthur W. Kenyon and Louis de Soissons in the Art Deco Style internally and Neo Georgian externally.

The idea for the Theatre was established by C. B. Purdon who had first founded the Letchworth Dramatic Society when he lived in Letchworth and hoped to build a Theatre there but the outbreak of war had put an end to that idea.

Right - C. B. Purdon, founder of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 29th of July 1960.

Purdon later founded the new town of Welwyn Garden City after being invalided out of the Army during the war and became the financial director of Welwyn Garden City Ltd. Here he also founded the Welwyn Garden City Society, an Amateur Theatre Group, which began by performing plays on the floor of the Town's Cherry Tree Restaurant. Later he was instrumental in getting the second Welwyn Stores building constructed there and before it opened he used that as a Public Hall and a venue for putting on plays by the Society, likewise when the Stores finally opened he instigated the building of a third Welwyn Stores building and did the same there.

After this Purdon arranged for the building of the Welwyn Theatre itself, a Cinema with full Stage Facilities where Films could be shown along with live productions from the Welwyn Garden City Society.

Left - The Exterior of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre when it first opened in 1927 - From The Bioscope, 2nd of February 1928.

The Bioscope reported on the new Welwyn Theatre and its opening in their 2nd of February 1928 edition, along with some of the images shown here, saying:- 'What will probably prove, in course of time, to be the first "try out" cinema in this country was opened at Welwyn Garden City on Friday last, when the interest aroused among the public of the ideal garden city and its immediate neighbourhood was so great that many would-be patrons had to be turned away.

An exterior view of the theatre conveys no idea of its interior appearance, for it has a perfectly plain facade of red brick with stone facings. Even the entrance suggests a public library or a chapel rather than a theatre.

Once inside, however, the visitor cannot fail to be struck with the novelty and artistry of it all, for Louis de Soissons, F.R.I.B.A., and A. W. Kenyon, F.R.I.B.A., the Welwyn City architects, have conceived something which is entirely original - there is no other scheme of this kind in this country - which at one and the same time meets the demands of artistry, efficiency and commercial practicability.

Right - The Foyer of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre when it first opened in 1927 - From The Bioscope, 2nd of February 1928.

The decorations throughout eschew tradition, and initiate a school of art of their own. The walls are almost entirely lined with plywood, grained, moulded and coloured, until the whole place radiates warmth, yields cheerful brightness, without offending the most delicate taste for colour.

Beginning fairly quietly at the back of the hall, the colour works up to a climax round the proscenium. Grey is the ground shade, with square panel mouldings in green, yellow, red and blue.

Left - The Auditorium and Stage of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre when it first opened in 1927 - From The Bioscope, 2nd of February 1928.

At intervals, along main auditorium walls, are wide panels worked up with dull silvered glass squares backed by 2-inch battens arranged in overlapping formation. These, like the whole of the plywood lining, are suggested by acoustic requirements - the theatre is also to be used for stage plays. Each of these panels is surmounted by a wooden canopy from which is suspended a silken valance, and the effect at a distance is that of a long window of mediaeval design.

Round the proscenium the walls and ceiling are splayed outwards in order to throw sound towards the back of the hall. Here the walls are underlined with special seaweed pads which are designed to prevent echoes.

Right - The Auditorium and Stage Safety Curtain of the Welwyn Theatre - From the Kinematograph Weekly, 26th of April 1928.

Throughout the theatre is fitted with concealed lighting units. Projection is from the back of the balcony, on which the seats are arranged in perfectly-straight alignment. Gaumont projectors are in use. Tip-up seats upholstered in beige cord velvet are installed throughout, the seating capacity being 1,200.

Above - The Auditorium and Stage of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Architect's Journal, 3rd of December 1930.

Preceding the formal opening, the Welwyn City Company, who are, of course, the promoters of the theatre, entertained a party at the Cherry Tree Restaurant - the communal restaurant of the "Welwynites." Sir Theodore G. Chambers, K.B.E., on behalf of the company, welcomed the guests and explained that the ambitious lines upon which the theatre had been built were typical of the courage and progress which characterised the whole of the Garden City. He welcomed H. Bruce Woolfe, managing director of British Instructional, to whose plans for the erection of studios at Welwyn he referred with great pride.

Right - A Section of the Auditorium of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre when it first opened in 1927 - From The Bioscope, 2nd of February 1928.

C. B. Purdon, another director of the Welwyn Garden City Company, paid a tribute to the architect and designer, Mr. Soissons, and to all those who had participated in the erection of the theatre. He mentioned that the whole of the labour, and most of the material used, had been supplied by Welwyn.

Left - The Lighting Switchboard Installed at the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Kinematograph Weekly, 9th of February 1928.

The company afterwards attended the first performance at the theatre, which included "Faust," a Ufa picture, Lotte Reiniger's "Cinderella," worked out in silhouettes, and one of the British Instructional nature series. The musical accompaniment is supplied by the Panatrope, the speakers being concealed behind grilles at each side of the proscenium. The management proposes to give picture performances on four nights each Week, dramatic presentations and meetings, etc., to be arranged on other evenings.'

The above text in quotes was first published in The Bioscope, 2nd of February 1928.

Above - Plans of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Academy Architecture and Architectural Review of 1929. And an Acoustic Plan of the Welwyn Garden City Theatre - From the Kinematograph Weekly, 26th of April 1928.

Above - A Google StreetView Image showing Charter House, Parkway, Welwyn Garden City, the site of the former Welwyn Theatre / Embassy Cinema, in September 2024 - Click to Interact.

The Welwyn Garden City Theatre had first opened on the 27th of January 1928 as a Cinema with Full Stage Facilities and began life by presenting Films four nights a week and Stage Shows on the other nights. The Theatre was taken over by the Shipman and King Cinema Chain in April 1936 and they had the Theatre altered to the designs of Louis Ososki, but Films and Live Shows continued to be presented there.

A major fire destroyed the Stage of the Theatre on the 27th November 1962 shortly after the first night of a live production of 'Carousel' by the Amateur Drama Group 'The Thalians'. However, the Stage was rebuilt and the Theatre reopened the following year as the Embassy Cinema just in time for the town's annual Drama Festival in June 1963.

The Embassy Cinema then continued in operation for the next twenty years, and still regularly staged the Town's Annual Drama Festival, until it was finally closed with a last showing of the Film 'The Dark Crystal' on the 6th of August 1983. The Theatre was then demolished for the construction of an Office Building called Charter House for the NHS which at the time of writing in October 2025 is still there today.

Right - An Advertisement for the Closure of the Embassy Cinema Welwyn Garden City in 1983 - From the Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 5th of August 1983.

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