Frozen in time, these eerie images show the interior of the abandoned Odeon cinema in Dundee which shut for the final time in 2001.
They will immediately transport people of a certain age back to the glory days when the cinema was a jewel in the crown of the £50m Stack Leisure Park in Lochee.
Now it sits empty, awaiting demolition.
It has been abandoned for 21 years and these images taken by Dundee photographer Paul Vinova show how the iconic cinema remains virtually untouched by the passage of time.
With no timeline set as yet for the Odeon’s demolition, there’s still plenty of time to look back on its highlights before the credits roll.
Life and times
Before it was the Stack Leisure Park, the 25 acres of land in the heart of the city belonged to the Camperdown Works.
Around 50,000 Dundonians were dependant on the jute industry for their livelihoods.
Camperdown Works provided for over 5,000 of these people.
Its chimney, Cox’s Stack, at 282-foot high was the landmark for what would become the largest jute works in the world.
By 1900, it was one of Britain’s greatest industrial complexes.
Camperdown was so big that it was entirely self-sufficient.
It made its own machinery, and had its own railway stop, fire station, and school.
The town of Lochee had put all its employment eggs in one basket, but at a time when Dundee was the world centre for jute manufacturing, it seemed like a sure thing.
Surely the busy works would be around for years to come?
The jute industry was hit by a series of booms and slumps in the 19th century, before falling into consistent decline in the 20th century.
It was announced that Sidlaw Industries were ending their textile operations at Camperdown Works in 1981.
While it wasn’t the end of the jute industry in Dundee, it was an ending for the workers who’d made Camperdown their lives.
When Cox’s whistle blew for the last time and the Camperdown gates swung open, a sea of cloth-capped, shawl-clad workers marched out onto Lochee High Street.
Where would they go now?
Stack Leisure Park
Dundee entrepreneur Michael Johnston bought Camperdown Works complex in the late 1980s.
He transformed the promising 11-acres into one of the biggest leisure parks in Scotland.
The Cox’s Stack chimney remained, as an homage to the land’s origins.
Initially hailed a success, the complex had a Megabowl bowling alley, the Venue nightclub, Buzz Bar pub, Fatty Arbuckle’s restaurant, a Tesco supermarket, and a Gala Bingo hall.
But one of its biggest attractions was the Odeon cinema.
Memories still linger of its now derelict halls once being the bustling backdrop to so many childhoods.
Titanic and Braveheart were just two of the biggest hits it showed.
However, the Stack Leisure Park was not to be the entertainment hub its developers had envisioned.
Roll credits
One by one, the businesses in the complex closed, and its slow death was a painful inevitability.
The closure of the Odeon in 2001 turned the leisure park into a disaster movie.
At the time, Ryden’s Bill Marley conceded they were now “flogging a dead horse”.
Marley said: “When the Odeon cinema closed the whole place just lost any momentum it had, and the remaining operators are sitting in a bit of a wilderness.
“We’ve been trying to find something meaningful to take it forward, but if you look around the Stack, it’s not looking great.
“The only option is to try to find some form of retail use.
“If not, the park’s future is a slow, lingering death.”
Marley’s words were a premonition for the next phase of the complex.
Rumours were circulating about the former Odeon being turned into a Ryze trampoline park – until the beginning of this year.
In March 2022, the owner of Home Bargains received planning permission to demolish the Odeon for its new store.
The existing Home Bargains store at the park will be vacated, and the popular budget retailer will move into a bigger unit on the site of the old cinema.
Dundee City Council approved the plans subject to 17 conditions.
The store will not be able to sell restricted goods, such as DIY items, carpets, jewellery, silverware, furniture, or electrical items.
No new retailer has yet been identified to take over the existing Home Bargains unit.
Paul Vinova
Born in 1987, the Stack Leisure Park was the backdrop to photographer Paul’s childhood.
He said: “I grew up seeing films at the Stack Odeon.
“We used to visit there on school trips.
“And when I heard that it was going to be demolished, I wanted to commemorate it before it was destroyed.”
An astro-photographer by nature, Paul has stumbled into the role of nostalgia photographer almost by accident.
He added: “I started out with photography in lockdown because most things were shut.
“All my other hobbies like going to the gym weren’t available to me.
“I loved shooting the night sky – but with Scotland being perpetually cloudy it’s not been the ideal location for that!
“So I’ve been searching out all these unique places instead, just thinking about what I can photograph that will get people talking and bring back memories.
“And that led me to the Odeon.”
With most of the Odeon still intact, Paul wonders what will happen to its relics when the building is eventually demolished.
He said: “There’s still an old projector in the building from the 1960s.
“There’s also some old stage lighting as well.
“I’d love to see these old props used by the new Odeon on Douglas Road.
“It would be such a shame to see them damaged or destroyed.
“But at least if the building is knocked down, now that we’ve got the photographs, we’ll still have the memories.”
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