That little spot was a good night out... Faces, Valentines pub, Odeon, Corinthian restaurant... Yellow Cabs to get home. The tube made it a buzzing place to be the summer of 96, when the Euros came to England.

Blimey, its 2022 and your video has just alerted me to the fact the Gants Hill Odeons gone ( I moved from area around twenty years ago). Discovering this has made it a sad morning for me. This place was key feature of my youth. I saw countless films there from when I was a small kid, and many hours there in my teens snogging various girls in the mid 1970s. All part of growing up and very happy memories. So sad to see the building gone.

Fantastic cinema, so sad it’s gone. I remember the green “exit” signs at the front of the stalls, the ice cream ladies taking their places just before the interval, and the rumble of tube trains which ran directly under the cinema into Gants Hill Station. More happy memories, thanks! ❤️

Hello. I remember seeing Herbie Rides Again & The Man With The Golden Gun at the Odeon. Very sad to see it had gone. Jane in New Zealand 🇬🇧🇳🇿

what an eyesore those flats are

Lived in Chigwell Row in the 60s....it was either The State in Barkingside or The Odeon...saw Ben Hur and all those wonderful films.....

I'm 21 and I live quite close to Gants Hill station (I've lived in Redbridge since I was 4). Those new flats are such an instantly recognisable sight to me, and they have been for quite a while, but only *two days ago*, while taking a trip down memory lane via the internet, did I learn that the area those flats are on used to be a frigging *cinema*! Oh, if I lived near the Gants Hill Odeon back then, I'd've went there every week just to get lost! Even if not to watch a film, I'd've at least hung around in the foyer for a bit (I sometimes pop into the Cineworld in Ilford for a bit just to see what's on and if anything has changed). I wonder what the interior of the cinema was like. Sadly, since it was demolished in the year I was born and before I moved to Redbridge, I'll never know what it was _really_ like, but it must've been quite nice (I sure hope it was). I can only say that those in the comment section who went to the Gants Hill Odeon while it was still around must've been really lucky. I can only dream of living _that_ close to a cinema, and, as of the time this comment gets published, I don't even watch movies all that much! I subscribed to your channel a while ago. I'm learning more about the history of Ilford and Redbridge through your channel. I still love the area, I really do, but to me, it just hasn't been the same since Bodgers went bust. And now Wilko's gone too. I _was_ going to end this long comment with "Sad." but, really, to call any or all of this just 'sad' is a sheer understatement. To end on a _slightly_ less depressing note, though, the area Wilko was on used to be a cinema too (the Super Cinema), then it was a C&A, then it was a Woolworths, and finally it was the Wilko that recently shut down permanently. I wonder what will take its place, or if it will ever be revived. We don't know for sure yet, so for now we can only speculate.

2024 and just found out the Odeon has gone. Sad times. I saw so many fllms there.

All the memories, of all the movies I watched in that cinema! I went there through childhood, and as a teenage with my mates. So many memories of it.

On a Saturday you would always see people from my school here.

I was in a band playing at The Valentine in Gants Hill & we kept being told to reduce the volume as the people in the new flats constantly complained. The Valentine has gone now too.

What a brilliant cinema this was, me and my mates used to go to the Saturday morning childrens club in the 1950's and then as adults in the 1960's, it stood in a really good position. Those were the day's.

Thanks for uploading. Love all things gantshill. Moved up north in 99 but still see family who moved up the road from gantshill to Newbury park.

The Odeon Cinema building was used (1959-1981) as the overflow service for the Gants Hill Synagogue, just around the corner, during the Jewish High Holy Days. Participants used to call it the Cinemagogue.

I can remember the old folks getting misty eyed as they pointed out where the music halls used to be, and now it's my turn. I saw Close Encounters here. Bulldozing away our past seems so brutal.

we moved here in 1984 and loved it.

I can't believe that the Odeon has been gone for almost 20 years now!

Why wasn't it a listed building?

Thank you for upload my First movie at oden was juarrick park.

My brother went to see Ian Dury &the Blockheads in 1978, remember him getting dressed up all stupid for it !

I remember the cinema when it was still one big screen with upper circle seating. It was magnificent. How they allowed it to be demolished is beyond me. It should have been protected.

when it was revamped in 1968? fairlop secondary boys brass band played in the car park for the re-opening - in like flint- i think, they knew how to push boat out!

Great trip down memory lane, many memories of films seen at that cinema. I think my first was Transformers the movie sometime in mid 80's. Has the Val gone?

Again awsome

We remmber this cinema very well. We viewd Hollywood movies and later bollywood movies too. In front of Odeon there was a carpark in open space.

Another crossing of borders I recall. I can remember only one visit to the odeon, and that was 1983 to see WarGames. Who where the flats named after? Ex Councillors I bet!

I remember seeing Indiana Jones Temple of Doom in 1984 and The Last Crusade in 89 at the Odeon. Also in 1989 saw Ghostbusters 2

I grew up going to that cinema in 1970s how could they knock it down I thought it was a listed building instead they built those horrible flats

Why did it close?

I hate how so many buildings in London have been knocked down just to build ugly flats & houses 😤

Hideous structure of flats.

What a soulless looking building they put up there. its very similar to the other looking buildings sprouting up all over London. These look similar to the 1960s brutalist buildings knocked up then and just as ugly