The Rembrandt Virtual Tour – Facade

We are grateful to the family of the late Derek Phillips for their permission to use much of the text and images from the website that was set up and run by him. Derek was very interested in local history and his community and a short biography can be viewed on the introductory page.

Facia Drawing
Image courtesy of the Phillips family © 2007

The Thirties

The Thirties
Image Credit: Premier Bioscope Collection

The first photograph available of the Rembrandt Cinema. No doubt taken on the day of its opening in October 1938. The description of the opening mentions a storm, and we can plainly see rain on the forecourt. It seems the photographer narrowly avoided being soaked!
Note the absence of signage in the canopy compared to later photographs. On the original photo (rather than this low resolution version) you can see wires dangling for the neon lighting for the car park sign

The Forties

The Forties
Image courtesy of Pearl Eggleton © 2007

Its the summer of 1943, and the kerbs are painted in black and white to aid visibility in the wartime black out. This photo is part of a set that you will find dotted around this web site that were taken by the projectionist of the time. These photos show the staff as well as the building for a refreshing look at life around the cinema.

pot the car park sign on the canopy now in place.

The Fifties

The Fifties
Image Credit: ABC Cinemas Ltd Archive

Ten years later the cafe is just about still open. The name Rembrandt has been lost from the front and has been replaced by the neon ABC triangle.

The Sixties

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
The Sixties

Taken from the other side and showing the unique position alongside suburban semi’s. This 1968 photo was taken by the council planning dept – maybe because of an application to go over to bingo that was made in that year.

I’m sure I ‘ll be able to remove that lamp post sometime!

The Seventies

The Seventies
Image Credit: Epsom and Ewell Borough Council

A transitional stage during conversion to twin cinemas. in October 1971. Brand new ABC “lozenges”, but the canopy hasn’t yet been taken down. There is a skip in the car park no doubt full of artefacts that should have been saved (may be some were?). I’d love to know happened happened to the ABC neon sign -smashed up I guess.

The Eighties

The Eighties
Image courtesy of the Phillips family © 2007

A dusk shot from 1986 to show the ABC EMI sign on and the ugly but necessary light box lightbox that replaced the canopy.

The Nineties

The Nineties
Image courtesy of the Phillips family © 2007

Autumn 1996 and ten years after the ABC brand was removed by Cannon Cinemas’, a management take-over brings it all back complete with the old triangle logo. A sadly short lived state of affairs. At the time that this picture was taken the cinema was already on the market and developers sniffing around.

Text written by the late Derek Phillips

The Tour

Boring legal stuff relating to this page

As explained earlier the text and images for this page came from the website run by the late Derek Phillips. To preserve his work and allow ready access to it, it was decided to merge his local history pages into the Epsom and Ewell History Explorer website. Of necessity some minor changes to the text were necessary and the layout has been changed to fit in with the house style of Epsom and Ewell History Explorer but in essence the web page is Derek’s.
The family of the Late Derek Phillips makes every effort to ensure that the information on this web page is accurate. However, they cannot accept responsibility for any loss or inconvenience caused by reliance on inaccurate material contained in this site. Links to other sites are provided for your convenience, the Phillips family cannot give endorsement of them. They cannot be responsible for any information contained on other websites.
All material on this site (including text and images) is copyright. Every effort is being made to ensure that all sources are credited. Where no credit is given then it should be assumed that the copyright in any particular item resides with the Phillips family or that the Phillips family should be contacted to ascertain who owns the copyright before text or photographs are reproduced elsewhere. Educational use is permitted provided that no changes are made to the material and Derek Phillips is acknowledged as the source.
Commercial usage is prohibited unless formal written permission is obtained beforehand.