The Old Fire Station, Kennington, London



From the tumbledown Raleigh Hall in Brixton we moved to a former Council rent office in Kennington which had been built as a fire station. In the photo the smaller left-hand end of the building was an earlier building from the 1860's. We rented the entire ground floor of the two buildings, the basement and later, the former stable block, seen on the extreme right.

A corridor to the kitchen, which was the only available area where some of the decorative items could be displayed. Centre right is a Kalee arc lamphouse on a Model No. 8 projector with a Western Electric 3A soundhead. The bulk of our projection collection was stored in the large basement.


Most of the latter years here were made intolerable by near continuous water leaks from lavatories and bathrooms in the flats above.

The space occupied by The Ronald Grant Archive whose historic film photo collection is on loan to the Cinema Museum for research and exhibition.



The former stables were used as a store for film prints and cinema seats (shelves, right) and in the foreground can be seen the circumference of a chandelier from the Granada Cinema, Welling, London.
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