Dorset has a new museum opening in the new year – and it looks likely to be the smallest museum in the county.

Measuring just 15ft 6ins in length and 12ft 4ins in width, the new Cinema Museum is located in the Projection Box on top of the roof at Christchurch Regent in the High Street, Christchurch.

Since the introduction of Digital Cinema at the Regent in 2012, the Projection Box has only had to house the new Digital Projector.

This left some surplus space in the Projection Box and three local cinema enthusiasts gained permission from the board at the Regent to create a Cinema Museum.

The new museum is thanks to a team of former projectionists. 

This includes Philip Stevens of Mudeford, a former board member and Regent projectionist, John Thornley of Bournemouth, a former projectionist at the Rex in Wareham, the last cinema in Dorset to use the old carbon arcs to illuminate a film projector.

Bob Dobson from Bournemouth, a former cinema engineer for Westrex and projectionist at the Regent Cinema from June 1961 to July 1962, is also lending his expertise.

The Regent is a living cinema museum itself, having opened as Christchurch’s Cinema on Boxing Day 1931.

It is a beautifully restored example of an early Art Deco cinema dating from the early 1930s, with its long spacious foyer and its magnificent 484-seat auditorium with stalls and circle seating.

Today, the Regent Centre programme is an artistic mix of live theatre and concerts, cinema and satellite broadcasts of prestigious artistic events from around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Bolshoi Ballet and the National Theatre.

Alongside the new Barco digital projector are a 1933 Kalee Eleven 35mm projector with a Westrex sound system dating from 1954/5.

When the Regent closed as a cinema in 1973 (see pictured below just before shutting)  it had two ancient Kalee Elevens in the projection box.

Daily Echo:

It is not known if they dated back to 1933!

A marginally newer 35mm projector, a Simplex E7 with an RCA sound system from about 1937, is now set up in situ to be used as an historic projector to demonstrate short 35mm celluloid film shows on the Regent’s big screen.

Other memorabilia at the Regent Cinema Museum includes a rewinder for getting a roll of celluloid film back to the start of the reel and a bank of three old red velvet seats that date back to when the Regent closed as a Mecca Bingo Hall in February 1982.

Old illuminated cinema signs used for directions to the Circle and Stalls at the Regent are also up plus two traditional, illuminated convex cinema quad poster boards along with cinema posters, stills, slides and hanging cards used to advertise films at the Regent.

Although many of the exhibits were used at the Regent, the Museum is intended to house equipment sourced from other venues as well where space permits.

Philip, John and Bob are keen to involve the community in this living record of one of Christchurch’s oldest and best-loved community facilities and have launched an appeal to the general public to share any stories, memories and memorabilia from the golden age of the silver screen at the Regent.

Did you meet your wife or husband over a choc ice in the back row at the Regent?

Do you recall being ejected from the Regent by the cinema’s commissionaire, Jock, who is fondly remembered in the 1960s for keeping order in the One & Nines, dressed in his big brown greatcoat complete with peaked cap, epaulettes and white gloves!?

Did you recall seeing the last film at the Regent before it closed as cinema in 1973 (The Thief Who Came to Dinner (A)) or The Train Robbers (U)?

Were you even at the grand opening of the Regent on Boxing Day 1931?

Perhaps you worked at the Regent as an usherette or as a projectionist or you were on duty during the Second World War entertaining the troops as they assembled on the south coast prior to the D-Day Landings?

It is planned to formerly open the Cinema Museum during 2015, when conducted tours of the Projection Box will be included in tours of the Regent.

It is also hoped that school parties and students from Bournemouth Film School will also visit to see historic cinema equipment that made the movies possible.

n If you have any stories to tell, memories to recall or even cinema memorabilia to share with the new Regent Cinema Museum, then please contact Philip Stevens on 07552 781184 or philipstevens31@talktalk.net.