Overview

Campbeltown Picture House first opened in late May 1913 and is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas in Scotland, as well as the only operating Scottish cinema with an Atmospheric interior. It is classified as Category A by Historic Environment Scotland, placing it in the top 7% of Scottish listed buildings and marking it of national importance. Campbeltown is often referred to as the most isolated town on the British mainland.

Architect Albert V. Gardner designed the 640-seat cinema with an Art Nouveau auditorium for a dedicated limited company run by the Armour family, who would go on to run the cinema for three generations.

In July 1931 the cinema closed for 11 days to allow sound equipment to be installed, reopening on 13th July with the operetta film The Desert Song (1929)  starring John Boles and Carlotta King.

A few years later in 1934, the cinema’s architect Albert V. Gardner was brought back to modernize the interior, for which he employed the Atmospheric theatre style with the theme of a Mediterranean courtyard. The cinema reopened mid-June 1934 with Morning Glory (1933)  starring Katherine Hepburn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The two small buildings in the auditorium on either side of the projection screen (on the left a Spanish mission style villa, and on the right a half-timbered castle building with pantile roof and castellated tower) became known locally as “the wee hooses”.

Over the years, local children convinced themselves that Snow White lived with dwarves in the castle and witches lived in the villa, however the more mundane truth was that the house right building contained the manager’s office and the left building was just a store room.

Part-time bingo was introduced in 1963 and ran alongside films until 1986 when the cinema closed. Thereafter, the building was taken over by the Campbeltown Community Business Association and a sizeable fundraising effort resulted in the building being refurbished and reopening in 1989.

The building was granted Historic Scotland  Grade B Listed Building status in 1989, subsequently upgraded to Grade A in 2007-2008 as part of Historic Scotland’s Cinema Thematic Study.

Starting in 2014, Campbeltown Picture House underwent a major restoration coupled with an expansion to provide new facilities such as additional circulation space and a second cinema within the same building. The picture house reopened in December 2017.

The auditorium’s sky ceiling was badly stained and painted-out brown in the 1980s. During the cinema’s restoration the sky ceiling was restored with a view of clouds as seen from the picturesque Machrihanish Bay, five miles west of Campbeltown.

Campbeltown Picture House currently exhibits both first-run films and classic movies in both digital and traditional film formats. The main screen has 192 seats split across two levels and the second screen has 53 seats on one level.