Monument record MHG57003 - La Scala Cinema - High Street, Invergordon

The site of the La Scala Cinema in the High Street, Invergordon.

The site was investigated in 2015 as part of the ARCH project 'Invergordon in World War I'. The La Scala Cinema was one of a number of entertainment venues which sprang up in WWI to serve military personnel and locals. It was built in 1915 by F.D. Cowieson and Co., well known portable building manufacturers, and could seat 400 people, later increasing to 600. Hornsey has a sketch from an unknown photo, showing a façade facing the High Street with two pepper-pot towers flanking a window. The building was said to be fireproof, which presumably meant that it had an outer cladding of corrugated iron. A WWI aerial photo shows that the building stretched back almost to Clyde Street. The building burnt down in 1924, like a number of other venues in the town after WWI. Some in the town have thought that they were deliberately burnt for insurance claims. <1>

In 1919 the manager was Mr. C.N. Duncan who showed twice daily films, at prices from 9d to 2/4d. The building also held a Music and Dancing license. By 1920 Mr. J. Philips was in charge and the prices of the higher end seats had dropped to 1/7d. <2>

Memories collected by Park Primary School in the 1990s recalled that the films were shown upstairs. The pianist was Mrs Sutherland and occasionally Mr John Urquhart. On the first floor was a restaurant and barber, and on the ground floor the shops of Gilbert Ross, Ironmonger and Smith, Tobaconist. <3>