Sudeley Place and East Mill

Former Continentale Cinema
Photo by Tony Mould
Millfield Cottages
Photo by Tony Mould

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

c) SUDELEY PLACE and the EAST MILL: On the western side of the attractive Sudeley Place stands the former Continentale Cinema, a small building in Renaissance style with a pitched roof and decorated facade. It originally opened in about 1891 as a Congregational chapel on the site of a temporary iron church of 1868. In 1920 the chapel was converted into the 370-seat King’s Cliff Cinema, and sound was installed in 1930. In 1947 it became the Playhouse Repertory Theatre, but was taken over by Myles Byrne in 1949 as the Playhouse Cinema. In 1951 it became the Continentale, specialising in foreign films but concentrating on pornographic films from the late 1960s until it closed in December 1986. In 1990-1 it was being converted to houses. {62,68,83,123}
Opposite the bottom end of Sudeley Place once stood the East Mill, a white post-mill probably erected in the 1790s which had a round mill-house and cottage at the rear of the later no.162 Marine Parade . In the mid 1840s it was removed to Sussex Street near Windmill Street where it was then generally known as Taylor’s Mill (see ” Albion Hill “). Millfield Cottages, a row of small houses off Sudeley Place, probably date from the 1830s and are named from this mill. {108,249a}

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.

Comments about this page

  • In 1966 I went to the Continental cinema to see the old ‘Batman’ series. It was in black and white and filmed in the 1940’s. The show consisted of all of the 10 minute cliffhanger episodes strung together. The show lasted several hours. Batman had carrot like ears.
    The elderly lady who was an usherette had ill-fitting false teeth. As the tension mounted in the episodes her teeth clacking accelerated. Click Click etc.

    By Bernard Dutton-Briant (26/02/2008)

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