Penultimate Picture Palace is a Grade II listed building in the Oxford local planning authority area, England. Cinema. 2 related planning applications.
Penultimate Picture Palace
- WRENN ID
- guardian-shingle-ridge
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Oxford
- Constituency
- Oxford East MP: Anneliese Dodds (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Type
- Cinema
- Address
- Penultimate Picture Palace, Ultimate Picture Palace, Jeune Street, Qxford, OX4 1BN
- OS grid reference
- SP 526 058
- Coordinates
- 51.74878, -1.23927
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Ultimate Picture Palace is a cinema built between 1910 and 1911 by John R Wilkins. It served as a warehouse from the early 1920s until 1976, after which it was restored and updated as the Penultimate Picture Palace. The building features a rendered brick facade and a plain tile roof, with a simple rectangular plan that includes a single-tier auditorium facing a screen originally painted on the rear wall. Above the entrance is a projection box.
The facade reflects the straightforward design typical of early English cinemas, featuring a central external paybox flanked by an entrance and exit door. It is adorned with Roman Doric columns that support a frieze and a segmental top fascia board. The interior includes simple panelling that was once characteristic of early cinemas, making these once-common buildings quite rare today.
The Picture Palace, also known as the Electra cinema, was constructed for Frank Stuart, the owner of the nearby listed Elm Tree public house, which shares a similar style and contributes to a strong group with the cinema.
Local climate
Penultimate Picture Palace sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 80% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 72% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 52% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 2021
- Related listed building consents — 2 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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