Clapham High Street officially jumps over Venn Street and makes a short march towards the Pavement and the Old Town. I would not bother mentioning this except for a little cinematic interest.

If you look at number 192-194 it does look rather grand to just be a corner shop. It has a rather fine tall classical facade finished in expensive ceramic tiles. This was supposed to be the entrance to the Coliseum Cinema in Venn Street where the Picture House cinema now stands. In 1910 the Electric Picture Palace had opened there on the site of a former stables. In 1919 a new magnificent cinema was designed, with a proposed entrance in the High Street, and surrounding buildings were purchased for expansion. However the company ran into financial difficulties and the proposed cinema never opened. The Coliseum would have had almost 3,000 seats. The Clapham Picture House, with its four screens has a capacity of only some 600 seats.

It is also worth briefly pointing out that the fourth Clapham cinema was at number 33, site of the current Burger King drive-through. This was the site of the Clapham Pavilion cinema which closed in 1957 after some 47 years of business.