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When Yehudi Menuhin came to Pilton: the thread about The Embassy cinema

Unless you know the north Edinburgh particularly well, the name Boswall Parkway will probably draw a blank expression from many a resident of the city. Mention The Embassy and you’ll probably get an even blanker one. But if you lived in this part of the world from the late 1930s through to the 1960s, then you’ll probably fondly recall that name: it was the place to be. In fact it was about the only place to be that wasn’t school or church! As a cinema it had a rather short and unremarkable life, not even making its thirtieth birthday, but on one day in 1958 it hosted a unique concert by one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.

The Embassy was conceived, built and operated by the Granton Cinema Co. Ltd. This company was principally controlled by a partnership of James Miller (builder, local councillor and later Lord Provost) and Robert McLaughlin (chartered accountant and local councillor). The pair had built up a chain of picture houses that included the prestigious Caley on Lothian Road. Also on the board were John Robertson of the New Tivoli, William Albin of Dalkeith’s Pavillion and the Managing Director was the latter’s father Arthur Albin. The senior Albin was a long-standing and well-regarded name on the Edinburgh cinema scene, starting his career in cinema as an organist in Glasgow before rising up through the ranks in Edinburgh, variously managing the Regent in Abbeyhill, the Astoria in Corstorphine and the Tivoli in Gorgie. Warrants for the construction were granted by the Dean of Guild Court on August 21st 1936 at a projected cost of £24,000 (although ultimately it would cost £30,000 – about £1.8 million in 2026).

Conceived in a modern style, the Embassy has a striking faced in glazed green tiles. The auditorium is almost saucer-like in shape, with a steep rake from back to centre.

Description of The Embassy printed in the Scotsman, 28th July 1937

It was the city’s latest Supercinema, a term used by the press to describe the new generation of large, purpose-built modern picture houses that had sprung up since the dawn of the talkies at the end of the 1920s. With 1,600 seats (1,000 in the stalls and 600 in the balcony) it would be one of the largest and was wired for sound with a British Thomson-Houston (BTH) system with “automatic volume expansion control“, the first of its kind in Scotland. The proscenium had a width of 36ft with a stage 15ft deep to allow for performers, for whom there were two dressing rooms.

The new cinema was located on the junction of Boswall Parkway and Pilton Drive. The former street takes its name from the former proprietor of the nearby Wardie Estate and is the principal east-west road running through the district. It began life as part of the Wardie council housing in the early 1920s but was extended east through to Crewe Road North after 1932. At this time what was a largely agricultural area would be transformed by a rapid programme of house building that turned it into a new suburb. It formed one of those invisible social boundaries that are so prevalent in Edinburgh; to the north lie the streets of Royston Mains and Wardieburn, a monotonous grid of Corporation tenements. To the south are the Gumleys: an equally monotonous estate of neat, 4-in-a-block cottage flats built by Mactaggart and Mickel, privately rented (although built with public subsidy) through the factor Gumley & Davidson. Each side looked down upon the other for reasons of its own. The Scotsman reported that the new attraction would “fill a long-felt want for a place of entertainment in the large housing area which has developed in recent years” and would serve a population of some 20,000 from as far away as Newhaven and Davidson’s Mains (the only other suburban cinema in the west of Edinburgh was the far off Astoria in Corstorphine and was priced accordingly).

Opening day was at 5:30PM on August 2nd 1937 with a screening of Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy in Libelled Lady plus 20 minutes of colour cartoons such as Popeye . A continuous programme was screened thereafter from 5:30PM each day, changing on Mondays and Thursdays and with matinees shown from 2PM on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Prices were 6d for the front stalls, 9d for the stalls and 1s for the balcony, or 4d and 6d for matinees: more expensive than the urban “flea pits” but on a par with other suburban houses. Children went half price with adults, but were not permitted unaccompanied or to the matinees. An exception was made on Saturday mornings which featured a popular children’s club. Boswall Parkway was served by the number 19 bus (then, as now) and the adverts optimistically tried to attract customers out from the city centre by claiming it was merely a 5 minute journey from the West End! The new venue was part of a planned series of suburban picture houses by Miller and Mclaughlin. They had opened the visually similar Carlton at Piershill in 1935 and followed with the State in Leith in 1938, however the interruption of WW2 put further expansion of this scheme on infinite hold.

With its pristine white render, red brick banding, jade green faïence tiles at ground floor and neon-lit details, The Embassy was certainly the most striking building in a neighbourhood with relatively little variation in architecture. On either side of its entrance were shop units, number 71 to the right being the confectioner and tobacconist chain R. S. McColl and number 75 to the left being a newsagent taken on by Miss Elizabeth Grant.

The Embassy suffered a fire on the morning of 4th February 1941 which took three fire engines two hours to bring under control. Ninety square feet of the floor was destroyed along with 72 seats. A temporary closure was required to repair the damage and redecorate, after which the capacity was reduced to 1,350. It survived WW2 otherwise unscathed. In the winter of 1948-49 it was one of a number of cinemas in Edinburgh in which a programme of public health films was shown to audiences drawn from local women’s guilds. In November were shown The Three A’s, Your Children’s Ears, Defeat Tuberculosis and World Garden, with a lecture by the Assistant School Medical Officer Dr W. N. Boog-Watson on Care of the Feet. This was followed in February with A Question of Taste, Five Towns, Another Case of Poisoning and This is Britain, the lecture on the subject of Smoking coming from Prof. F. A. E. Crew of Edinburgh University.

The unusual and memorable event referred to in the title of this post took place on 11th September 1958 when world renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, in the city for the International Festival, hired the Embassy to perform a concert of works of Mendelssohn and Beethoven with his trio, completed by cellist Gaspar Casado and pianist Louis Kentner. The three waived any fee, the 1s admission price (aka “Bob-a-head“) covering the hire of the venue alone, In contrast, the cheapest seats at the Usher Hall to see them perform the same programme were 5s. Some critics had claimed that Festival acts were of no interest to working class Edinburgh and Menuhin had set out to prove them wrong. He did so in inimitable style, 4,500 people lining Boswall Parkway to try and get in: two thirds of them had to be turned away disappointed.

The trio were treated to a hero’s welcome by the assembled crowds. As their car approached the assembled throngs being marshalled by the police, Louis Kentner was quoted in the Scotsman as innocently remarking “there must be something on here?”. “You’re on” he was told. As the show was about to start, it was suddenly realised that the Embassy lacked any sort of stage lighting that would illuminate the artists’ sheet music. Lord Provost Ian Johnson-Gilbert and Councillor Robert McLaughlin (the cinema’s proprietor) went door-to-door until they came back with the sitting room standard lamp of Mrs Janet Harvey, 24 Pilton Drive, who agreed to lend it for the performance.

During the interval, one of the journalists in tow asked Gaspar Cassado his thoughts on the audience enthusiastically applauding at every pause between movements. “What does it matter?” came the reply, placing his hand over his heart, “it comes from here—“. So impressed by their reception that Menuhin instantly wrote a letter of gratitude to the editor of the Scotsman:

…the concert was successful beyond our wildest hopes. Knowing audiences as well as I do, having played in public for 36 years, and in thousands of circumstances, I can say with complete assurance that the audience this morning was composed overwhelmingly of extremely musical people who have never sat in a concert hall before. Mendelssohn and Beethoven went to the hearts of people who had never heard these trios before… Even though the hour was a difficult one for housewives, the fact that 2,000 remained unable to enter the hall proves that there is a vast support – independent of any visitors, for great Festivals and great art in Edinburgh.

Yehudi Menuhin’s letter to the Editor of the Scotsman, 11th September 1958

This success encouraged a repeat four years later and on Tuesday 4th September 1962 1,000 schoolchildren and 300 old age pensioners were treated to a free concert by the Russian duet of David Oistrakh on violin (an equal of Menuhin’s) and Frida Bauer on piano.

The Embassy soldiered on into the 1960s but like most of its contemporaries, the future was not rosy and it was fighting a losing battle with television to retain audiences. It was also fighting for survival on a second front and was plagued by vandalism blamed on idle youths. Co-owner Councillor Robert Mclaughlin (Progressive, St Andrew’s Ward) told Magnus Magnusson of the Scotsman that the windows had been smashed so frequently that he could no longer get insurance. What would prove to be the final shows took place on the weekend of March 1st 1964, with Day of the Triffids starring Howard Keel and Nicole Maurey heading the bill. A relatively minor seat fire on the following Monday morning caused sufficient enough damage to convince the management it was prudent to call it a day, and it never re-opened.

Following closure, a further further fire took place causing further damage to the stalls and flooring on the night of January 16th 1966. Applications for licences to operate as a dance hall and a bingo hall were declined and it remained vacant until demolition in 1975. It was replaced the following year by a Laws Stores supermarket, later re-branded as William Low. In January 1980, £5,000 was stolen in an armed robbery and in December that year the premises suffered its own fire, destroying over £200,000 in stock. Robbers struck again in July 1990, with £10,000 of alcohol and cigarettes and £500 in cash taken. Like the Embassy had been squeezed out by competition from TV, Lows too found themselves under pressure. This was from bigger English competitors who were muscling in to the Edinburgh scene. The Boswall Parkway store was sold to the budget, “no frills” Shoprite chain in 1993. The following year Lows were bought over by Tesco and Shoprite by its English rival Kwiksave. The latter kept the store going. A four-figure sum was stolen by armed robbers in November 1994, and again in April 1995. Kwiksave called it a day and put the supermarket up for sale in 1997 after which Somerfield took over. However they too did not last long and it had closed by 2001 as a result of competition following the opening of a large new Safeway store on Ferry Road.

In 2001 an application to demolish the supermarket was lodged and it was replaced the following year by twenty-two housing association flats and a community health centre. No trace of either the cinema or the supermarket remain. In 2018 The Living Memory Association published a special edition of their reminiscence magazine called Going to the Pictures, covering all aspects of Edinburgh picture house nostalgia. Some of the memories specific to The Embassy included waiting outside and asking any adult they recognised to pay them in; jumping up and down on the seats; throwing sweeties and of course missing the film because couples found more interesting things to occupy themselves with in the back row.

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