SEVENTY-five years ago this week it seemed the Gaumont Cinema in Foregate Street, Worcester, would be pulled down to make way for commercial redevelopment.
Its fate in 1975 worried many Worcester people, including the Civic Society, which had been pressing for it to be kept standing as the city’s only large-scale auditorium for concerts, live shows and conferences.
The Rank Organisation, however, announced that it would go-ahead with the planning approval it had received for the demolition of the Gaumont and the building on the site of offices, shops and a community hall for dances, meetings and local amateur shows.
Fortunately, there was a reprieve and the Gaumont was converted into a bingo club.
In the late 1950s and through the 1960s the stage of the Gaumont played host to live performances by such legends as Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix.
- Do you have any memories of the Gaumont? Leave a comment below or email Mike Pryce
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