Why would.Miss Cranstone be turning in her grave? Wander down Renfield Street and pause  by a handsome building at Number 15.  Behind that white tiled frontage lies much more than shops and offices.

 

Cranstone's De Luxe disguised as shops and offices

Ghosts of Glasgow cinemas are everywhere when you get your eye in training

This is where the formidable Miss Cranstone, she of the tearoom and temperance movement, opened an upmarket cinema in yet another of Glasgow’s fine old warehouses.

Cranstone’s de Luxe opened in 1916 and soon became a feature of the city centre. The renovated premises offered not just films but a tearoom and billiards hall to attract the paying public. But by 1969, respectability had been cast out the window.  Now the Tatler Club presented a mix of cartoons for children and (not on the same screen), ‘slightly dodgy sexploitation films’ for adults.

“By this time Miss Cranstone would have been turning in her grave,” says cinema historian Gordon Barr.

Ghosts of Glasgow’s cinema history flicker through our Cinema City Treasure hunt with magical storytelling by Gordon at every stop. Just one of many reasons for downloading our  app and joining the game through Glasgow city centre.

When you know where to look, as Gordon says, Glasgow is full of cinema ghosts. We don’t want to give too much more away just now.  Each stop is hidden until you unlock the way by solving riddles and completing tasks at the last stop (if that makes sense).

Download now and be sure to  let us know how you get on.

Note: this app was first produced in collaboration with Glasgow Film Festival supporting a live event during the film festival. For that game we mixed live and digital elements and invited players to email us at the end of the game. They then received clues to three extra tasks and trophies our wily quizmaster Austin Yuill had hidden at three separate locations on the route.