Forty years ago this month the Skyline drive-in theatre in Lambton screened its final film, and a much loved and fondly remembered entertainment venue fell dark and silent.
The drive-in was in an area west of Croudace St, accessed from Pride Ave. The land was formerly owned by the Scottish and Australian Mining Company who established Lambton colliery in 1863. In 1903 the company leased four acres to Lambton Council to use as a sanitary depot, a place to bury the euphemistically named ‘night soil’ collected from the outside toilets of residents. With connections to a piped sewerage system commencing in 1917, the need for the night soil paddock gradually declined and the lease expired in 1938.
In 1955, Provincial Gardens Pty Ltd, a company controlled by Hoyts and Union Theatres, purchased the land and applied to open the first drive-in theatre in NSW. Constructed in 1956 at a cost of £200,000, the theatre’s 15 acres catered for 720 cars, with the 156-ton pre-stressed concrete screen the biggest in Australia at the time. The Skyline opened on 17 October 1956 with a screening of Three Coins in the Fountain. It became a popular venue for families with a snack bar, and a children’s playground that later included a ride-on train.
In 1980 the video cassette recorder (VCR) was introduced to Australia, allowing people to view films in the comfort of their own home. Just four years later 26% of homes had a VCR. In the decade from 1974 to 1984 average cinema attendance in Australia halved, and many theatres struggled financially. The Skyline was no exception, and on 26 June 1985 it closed with a screening of Porky’s Revenge and Night Patrol.
The site remained vacant, derelict and vandalised for several years, and a fire destroyed the main building. In the 1990s the area was redeveloped for housing, and today many of the younger residents there are possibly unaware of the varied former uses of the land beneath their homes.
The article above was first published in the June 2025 edition of The Local.
Acknowledgement: Some of the information in the article was sourced from the book “Front Stalls or Back? The history and heritage of the Newcastle Theatres” by K J Cork and L R Tod.
Additional Information
For further information on the nightsoil paddock, see the Lambton sanitation page.
YouTube videos
- Five minute film by Frank Embleton documenting the demise of the theatre. Digitised and uploaded by Bowline Media
- Black and White advertisement for the Skyline, c. 1956
Newspaper articles
Newspaper articles referenced below can be found in the “Lambton” clippings folder in the Local Studies section of Newcastle Library.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 13 Oct 1955 12 Oct 1955 | "An application by Provisional Gardens Pty. Ltd., for a drive-in theatre at Lambton was granted today." Newcastle Morning Herald |
| 7 Mar 1956 | "Work will start shortly and the theatre is expected to be in operation before the end of the year." - Newcastle Morning Herald |
| 14 Sep 1956 | "A regulation issued last week [by the Films and Theatres Commission] forbids the erection of a drive-in theatre within a four-mile radius of any other drive-in". This "left no site for another drive-in in Newcastle except the Pacific Ocean, Alderman Herrald said yesterday." - Newcastle Morning Herald |
| 16 Oct 1956 | Newcastle Sun six page supplement for the opening of the drive-in, with the following headlines:
|