Warminster Athenaeum

Warminster Athenaeum stands in the market town of Warminster in Wiltshire. It is a Victorian theatre built in Jacobean style in 1857–58 to designs by William Jervis Stent. The building is Grade II listed and Wiltshire’s oldest working theatre. It may also be the oldest non-cinema venue in the country still showing films, with the first screenings in 1897. The structure began as a literary institution with a lecture room, reading room, classrooms and a library. The Athenaeum has served many purposes over the years. From 1895 it belonged to the Urban District Council. In 1912 Albany Ward leased the auditorium and turned it into the Palace Cinema, which ran for fifty-two years and presented more than thirteen thousand films. Most of the building closed in December 1964 after falling into disrepair, leaving only a gentlemen’s club on the first floor. After restoration it reopened in 1969 as an arts centre with music, dance, cinema, plays, concerts and exhibitions. Today the Athenaeum Centre for the Community occupies the whole building. A steering group rescued it in 1997 and reopened it in 2000. The trust has since spent over one hundred thousand pounds on cleaning the façade, replacing the roof and refurbishing the bar and function room. The centre continues to host shows, plays, concerts, lectures and films for local residents.