Phoenix Picturehouse
cinema in Oxford, England
The Phoenix Picturehouse is a cinema in Oxford, England. It is at 57 Walton Street in the Jericho district of Oxford.
The Phoenix used to be an independent cinema, and from 1989 the Picturehouse Cinemas chain developed from it. Since 2012 the multi-national Cineworld group has owned Picturehouse Cinemas.
History
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 1920 Poole's, a company most famous for Poole's Myriorama, refurbished the cinema and renamed it The Scala.
“Phoenix Picturehouse” enters the record as cinema in Oxford, England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Phoenix, Picturehouse and cinema can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Phoenix Picturehouse” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Phoenix, Picturehouse and cinema provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7186952. Authority coordinates are 51.760, -1.267. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 2012, 1913 and 1917.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Phoenix Picturehouse”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Phoenix Picturehouse primary sources, Phoenix Picturehouse archive and Phoenix research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Phoenix Picturehouse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.