Phoenix Picturehouse

The building was designed by local architect Gilbert T Gardner for proprietors Richard Henry John Bartlett, W Beeson and Charles Green. It opened on 15 March 1913 as the North Oxford Kinema. By then Oxford had several cinemas, including the Electric Theatre in Castle Street and the Oxford Picture Palace in Jeune Street. The cinema changed hands several times in its early years. Proprietors included Hubert Thomas Lambert (1917–20), CW Poole's Entertainments (1920–23), Walshaw Enterprises (1923–25), Ben Jay (1925–27), J Bailiff (1927–28), and Edward Alfred Roberts (1928–30). In 1989 Lyn Goleby and Tony Jones bought the cinema and made it the first venue in the Picturehouse Cinemas group,