By the Edinburgh based house builders James Miller & Partners, 1938. Now in a dilapidated state, this rather above the average supercinema from the Modern Movement era is in desperate need of some TLC being on the Buildings At Risk register where it is rated in “fair” condition with category of risk as “low.” The shops below are still being used. The majority of the building is disused and fire damaged, though wind and water tight. Full planning permission and listed building consent for partial demolition and conversion to residential flats were conditionally approved in 2006.
This building was opened as the State Cinema on 19 December 1938 and was described as a “luxury supercinema” which also included four shops, two billiard saloons and a skittle alley (billiards and skittles located in the two floors above the entrance foyer).
From Ideal Cinema of the time: “The first new cinema to be erected in Leith for eleven years, the State, in Great Junction Street, provided the architect, James Millar, of Edinburgh, with an unusual number of problems, particularly in connection with the foundations.
Owing to its proximity to the Water of Leith some of the bases to stanchions had to be taken down some 20ft to get below the bed of the river. An overflow sewer had to be bridged over at 25ft below ground level and a heading driven 30ft below the tramway lines in Great Junction Street for 30 yds to make connection with the sewer. Altogether demolition, foundations and preparatory work required ten weeks and the house itself was completed in 14 weeks.”
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