THESE images look back to the days when Colchester’s original Odeon cinema saw queues stretching around the corner.

With the way in which we go to the cinema having changed it seems incredible to think when the art deco building first opened in Crouch Street in 1931 it became the sixth in the town.

At the time Colchester had far fewer residents but the Regal, as it was, proved as popular as what became the Hippodrome, the Playhouse, the ABC, Corn Exchange and Vaudeville cinemas which predated it.

For decades the Crouch Street building was hugely popular, closing in 2002 and remaining empty since then.

These images show it through the decades.