Kosy Kinema

Shop History

Notes

• As shown in Kelly's Directory for 1916 the Kosy Kinema Picture House's proprietor was Barrington Lynham - the same person as that for the Victoria Cinema (No.82 High Street).
  
  
• Details about Crisswell's Garage can be found on the page for No.170-176 High Street.
  
  
• Black Bear Lane was named after the Black Bear Inn, which stood on the corner with the High Street. The building is now a Chinese restaurant.
  
  In the early 20th c the lane was known as Grafton Street and there was once an early cinema there; The Kosy Kinema.
  This cinema was also used as a swimming pool, and the floor was boarded over for the shows. 
  
  

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• Building Changes

  Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch
  Sale particulars, postcards and printed euphemera
  Reference HD 1325
  Covering dates 1878-1952
  Newmarket Baths and Laundry, with large hall used as a Picture Palace known as 'The Kosy Kinema' and 3 cottages, Grafton Street, Newmarket HD 1325/56 Jul. 1913
  
  
• Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch
  Newmarket Urban District Council Records
  Reference EF 506
  Covering dates 1851 - 1974
• Additions to baths, Grafton St, for the Baths & Laundry Co (T. Wilkins, 21 Great Helens, London EC) EF 506/6/1/4/189 Jun 1899
  Additions to baths and Laundry establishment, Grafton St, for the Newmarket Baths and Laundry Co Ltd (Thomas Wilkins, 21 Great St Helens, London EC) EF 506/6/1/5/220 Dec 1899
  Alterations to cottage, Grafton St, for the Baths and Laundry Company (Thomas Wilkins, 21 Great St Helen's, London) EF 506/6/1/J142 Jun 1910
• Additional exits to the Newmarket Picture Palace or Palace of Varieties, Grafton St, for Cook & Reed EF 506/6/1/14/440 Nov 1912
  Porch, Kosy Kinema, Grafton St, for Cook & Reed EF 506/6/1/15/462 Oct 1913
  
  
• Origins of Grafton & Fitzroy Street names:-
  Another word for son is the Norman-French Fitz, generally denoting illegitimatecy.
  The Duke of Grafton was Henry FitzRoy, as the natural son of Charles II, by Barbara Palmer née Villiers.
  King Charles II had many mistresses, including of course Nell Gwynne of Newmarket fame.
  
  
• It was still Grafton Street on the Newmarket 1926 map shown below, no name shows on a 1937 map.
  The Black Bear Inn probably was not one of Newmarket's oldest but certainly existed in the 19th c, quite possibly well before that, it was mentioned in Chapmans in 1787 and in 1823 appears in Pigot's Directory with William Jennings as publican.
  
  
• Newmarket Local History Society - The Rise and Fall of the Cinema in Newmarket:-
  http://www.newmarketlhs.org.uk/lhs6A.htm