On the campus of Sawston Village College in New Road, this building was opened in 1932 as a community theatre - see
TL4849 : Foundation stone for the Marven Centre - after a dispute concerning performances at the college, and operated as a cinema until 1963, when a decline in patronage following the advance of television led to its closure.
According to the British Film Institute's website
Link (
Archive Link ) "In 2008 the Cambridge Film Trust helped the school re-establish screenings in the building, with support from the UK Film Council. Young people were trained at that time to run the cinema for the community and young people continue to be involved in screenings, enjoying working in both front-of-house roles and in projection. Young people involvement in the cinema makes a visit to Sawston Cinema a unique experience."
In 2011 the building was renamed in honour of John Marven, a former Principal of the Village College. It is typical of the small-town cinemas of the 1930s, constructed in the local yellow stock brick but dignified by a minimal whitewashed portico flanked by a couple of token Tuscan columns. Pevsner ignored it in his Cambridgeshire surveys of 1954 and 1970, but Simon Bradley in his 2014 revision briefly sums up its style as "blockish".
In December 2016 a planning application was lodged for "retention of the Marven Centre, demolition of existing temporary portacabin [sic] and storage unit and erection of a single storey community hub building, to be used as a library, meeting rooms, offices and activity space."
For a side view see Humphrey Bolton's
TL4849 : Sawston Cinema.
See also
Link