Southend Odeon: Southend’s lost cinema which once hosted concerts from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones

The cinema was once host to music and comedy royalty.

For many growing up and studying in Southend-on-Sea, there’s only been one Odeon cinema.

The eight-screen multiplex has been a landmark at the top of Southend High Street for the best part of two decades.

But before that Odeon was built at the end of the 1990s, there was another much more prolific Odeon in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Further into the high street, where the University of Essex campus stands today, was the Southend Odeon Theatre and Cinema.

Originally opening as The Astoria, the building originally opened as a grand theatre which would also play pictures – as many old theatres did.