The history of the Palace Cinema (full name, the Palace Cinema Picture Palace, and known locally as the Picture House) . It opened in 1939, and served the town well until around the early 1970s. In its final period as a cinema, it attempted to compete with the influence of television by showing 'Midnight Movies', an initiative which had some success in attracting the romantically inclined young folk in the town. But eventually television won the battle, and the building then served as an amusement arcade for a number of years. A disastrous fire in 1985 destroyed everything but the external walls and the façade.
The Skeleton of the building after the fire
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After the fire, the building had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a firm of developers who ignored pleas from the local authority to, at the very least, make the façade presentable, and who demonstrated what can at best be described as an irresponsible attitude to local environmental concerns. The paint peeled, the rats rampaged, and the sycamores sprouted. Eventually the occupiers of the two shop units decided they had had enough and the entire building was left to the mercy of the elements.
Although the cinema was not a listed building, Fife Council hoped that the façade could be saved as the frontage for a new building on the site. However, by early 2008, the structural steelwork within the façade had deteriorated to such an extent that a Dangerous Building Notice had to be served on the owner. The entire building was demolished in May 2008.
.jpg "Prancing reindeer motif window")
Prancing reindeer motif window
Douglas Spiers of Fife Council with colleague retrieving a window panel
The prancing reindeer on the panel behind Miss Mackie was a motif repeated elsewhere in the cinema's decor, notably in the stained-glass windows in the façade. Immediately prior to the demolition of the building, Douglas Speirs, Fife Council's archaeologist, was able to rescue the one surviving window, as the following photos show. The window is now in the ownership of Burntisland Heritage Trust.
Miss Mackie with the reindeer motif behind
