22 December 1958

This is just off Smithdown Road. It is on the maps but is just outside Toxteth. The church opened in 1887 and could seat 750 but it was closed by 1924,( though church records exist until 1925). The congregation then moved to Heathfield Road.

It was reopened in 1926 as the Cameo Cinema. but this itself closed around 1957/58. It later became a warehouse until it was finally demolished circa 1991. Housing now occupies the site.

This photograph looking along Webster Road (itself following the old course of the Lower Brook) clearly shows its ecclesiastical origins as well as the name under which it became infamous as the scene of the 1949 Cameo murders for which an innocent mad, George Kelly was hanged. This was still (just) a cinema when I was a child whilst the little alcove past the cinema, (where the advertising hoarding is), led to a scrap metal, rag and bone yard which was active until at least the mid 1960s.

Records and History courtesy of Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Libraries. Visit Liverpool Libraries online catalogues at http://archive.liverpool.gov.uk
Additional history from Philip Mayer.