Hove Cinematograph Theatre (1911-1922)
Tivoli Cinema (1922-1948)
Embassy Cinema (1948-1981)

1 Western Road, Hove 14
operated c1912-1981

1911 October 5 Planning application approved by Hove Council
1912 January 31 Cinematograph exhibition licence granted to Martin Waters, the company director; opens for screening Monday to Saturday
1913 January 2 Plans for addition of a gallery are approved by Hove Council
1914 The toilet in the yard is described by the borough's medical officer as 'very foul and without a supply of water'.
1916 Acquired by two local businessmen (John Harris, 42 Lansdowne Place and Joseph Cohen, 3 Sillwood Road) and may have been renamed the Tivoli
1917 June Re-licensed to James Clark Watson
1917 October Re-licensed to William Denos
1919 May Acquired by George Beyfus of Tivoli Enterprises (Hove) Ltd
1922 Renamed Tivoli Cinema. Beyfus acquires the nearby Picturedrome, which becomes the Scala.
1925 Acquired by Clifford Victor Maclean Smart
1927 March 28 Acquired by J Goldberg
1929 November Converted to GB-Kalee sound system. Last silent film: Abel Gance's Napoléon, first talkie: The Singing Fool.
c1930 owned by a Mrs Fellows (who also owned the King's Cliff Cinema in Kemp Town at this time).
1948 350 seats, prices 10d and 1s 9d, continuous performances, booked at hall;  proscenium 20ft.
1948 Acquired by Harry Jacobs and renamed Embassy Cinema. Jacobs also owned the Curzon at this time.
1953 Prices 1s-2s 8d; 398 seats; Walturdaw sound system
1957 Prices 1s-2s 9d; two changes weekly
1961 Prices 1s 6d-3s
1967 Acquired by Miles Byrne, booked at Byrne House, 2 St John's Road, Burgess Hill
1979 Planning permission to split the building into a gambling club and smaller cinema is refused.
1981 end March Closed. Final film: Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again.

It became the Black Cat bingo club until the late 1980s. It was later used, still virtually unchanged from its cinema layout, as a pine furniture supermarket and then as a Laser Warriors adventure game site and for other retail and leisure purposes. It then became an amusement arcade, closed again and is currently a coffee house.

Photos: David Fisher, Terra Media

Although no longer in use as a cinema, the design of the building can still be seen clearly. It is fairly typical of the cinema buildings in the early silent era. Patrons followed a corridor from the front door to the entrance to the auditorium past the box office on the right. Offices were on the upper floors. The auditorium began at the rear of the three-storey section, with the projection box adjacent to the entrance to the stalls. [Incidentally, the sign marking the boundary between the old boroughs of Brighton and Hove can be see at first-floor level on the side wall.]
        The auditorium extended to the rear, essentially as a simple rectangular room with a raked floor. The screen was at the extreme rear of the building. The three side doors could be opened at the end of the performance to allow the audience to exit more quickly into the side street than they would if they all had to pass through the narrow front entrance.

Reference:
Judy Middleton: Film-makers, Cinemas and Circuses at Hove (2001)

Brighton cinema directory