According to Kinematograph Weekly of Thursday 18 August 1921, the cinema was formally opened on the Monday of the previous week: Monday 8 August 1921. The ‘gallery’ was 60ft wide and seated 420. The decoration was ‘Greek key type’ with a silver, black and gold colourscheme and copper-plated lamps. “Music is from an unseen orchestra.”
The fire was on Friday 2 February 1940.
It broke out in the operating box, 45 minutes into a performance.
See the two newspaper reports in the ‘Photos’ section.
Leeds Arena was not built on this cinema. The Arena is elsewhere.
The current Google Maps satellite view (June 2024) shows the cinema has been demolished and the site awaits development.
The projection was from the back of the stalls and, due to a central cast iron column, was off-axis. The beams had an upward angle. The console of the Victorian organ was relocated to an orchestra area created below the screen, which looks to have had a curved barrier. An organ blower driven by an electric motor was installed, very crudely, and located in front of the rather trashed organ behind the screen. The two U-shaped galleries meant that people in the side arms of the U (where the seats faced across to the other side) had to sit askew in their seats and/or crank their heads to one side to look sideways at the screen.
This is illustrated in uploaded photos from 1951 before renovation started.
The location on the map is not accurate. It was actually on Park Road.
Having overlaid a 1934 OS 25-inch map on the Google satellite view: the site of Western is (to a very close approximation) on the north side of Park Road opposite Hawkshead Drive.
The Palladium cinema was created in what had been the 1896 Queen’s Market hall. The entrance to the building was on Back Crescent Street which was parallel to Marine Road Central (the promenade).
The sign still visible on a gable end points to the entrance to a passage through the promenade buildings to the back street. There were lights and cases of posters etc, but paying etc took place at the entrance to the building in Back Crescent Street.
The 1933 and 1913 25-inch OS Maps confirm this.
The GBPC Ltd acquired the four Pavilion cinemas when created and floated in April 1927. The process of acquisition was completed on 20 May, and Electric Pavilions Ltd (i.e. Mr & Mrs Israel Davis) hosted a farewell party for employees and friends at the Shepherd’s Bush Pavilion on Saturday 4 June 1927.
So the sentence “The Pavilion Cinema was taken over by Gaumont British Theatres in 1923” is not correct.
In the above, it should be the COMET not Coronet cinema.
The ‘Thorpe St and Old Cemetery Road’ location was taken by me from a local history web page; and is wrong. The road running alongside the auditorium is now called Northgate. Thorpe Road is the side road at the projection room end; and Henrietta Street is the side road at the screen end.
The correct postcode is TS24 0HH. Houses 176 to 188 Northgate are on the site.
The Electrocord sound system (without the ‘h’) was from Butchers who also produced British B films. I suspect it was a flawed system as it always seems to have been replaced after a few years, usually by Western Electric. Buy cheap, buy twice!
Alas, the display case doesn’t have a film title to narrow down the date. But it does have an advert “Shop at the Co-op” which is ironic as the building (with rear extension and new front) is a Co-op supermarket. There are no traces of the cinema in the public areas, though I have heard that some unused spaces have traces of the origins.
The post code and map location are wrong. A close fit is Bradford BD1 2ER; the site of Bradford College’s Advanced Technology Centre. The college had acquired the hotel and theatre site in the very early 1970s.
The 1952 fire was not in the gallery, nor did it break through the roof.
According to the Yorkshire Observer on 25 January 1952 the fire was in the stage area and it “destroyed the cinema screen and seriously damaged the stage and decorations”. A fire officer was reported: “Luckily we managed to confine the outbreak to the stage, but another ten minutes and the whole of the cinema would have probably been alight”.
In 1941 the Ministry of Supply took over the premises (presumably for wartime purposes such as storage, as happened elsewhere). In 1949 the local paper carried a rumour of it reopening as a cinema, but the Ministry of Works extended the lease and repurposed it for the GPO around 1957. After years of standing derelict, a branch of Sainsbury’s was built on the site and opened in December 1969. It closed in January 1982. Google Streetview now (2022) shows a gym in the former supermarket building.
This property is the former TEMPERANCE HALL, which was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 (along with the EMPIRE).
On the 1927 OS 25-inch map (see Photos section), this property is marked as ‘Hall’. The EMPIRE, set back from Chaloner Street, is marked as ‘Picture Theatre’. The only other Guisborough cinema I have found mention of is the PRIORY. It is mentioned a couple of times in The Kinematograph Weekly: July 1917 in an advert quoting a letter from manager Ted Mawdsley; and December 1917 in a promotion for a film booking. Mawdsley went bankrupt in 1922. He told the hearing that he started the PRIORY in 1916 but had to close it (by 1922) because renters would not accept his bookings. This would explain why the PRIORY is absent from the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 and from the (next known extant) KYB-1927; and why the venue is a ‘Hall’ on the 1927 OS map. From KYB-1927 to KYB-1954 the EMPIRE is Guisborough’s sole cinema listed. I have found a 1952 report of a CARLTON ballroom in Guisborough. The venue in this article is the TEMPERANCE HALL which became the short-lived PRIORY cinema.
Edward Mawdsley owned the PRIORY cinema. The PRIORY is mentioned a couple of times in The Kinematograph Weekly: July 1917 in an advert quoting a letter from manager Ted Mawdsley; and December 1917 in a promotion for a film booking. Mawdsley went bankrupt in 1922. He told the hearing that he started at the PRIORY in 1916 but had to close the venue (by 1922) because renters would not accept his bookings. The PRIORY looks to have later become the CARLTON ballroom. From Kinematograph Year Book 1927, the EMPIRE is the sole cinema listed for Guisborough.
In the local newspaper the Royalty advertised as being on ‘Baffin Street’, which is the steep street on the right of the photo of Watson Street.
Talkies, a Western Electric system, were installed around early March 1929. The owners also installed sound at the same time at the Cinerama on South Tay Street.
According to the Kinematograph Weekly of 30 March 1911,the Oxford Hall opened in the week commencing 20 March 1911. Entrance was 2d, 4d and 6d. No expense had been spared to make it the ‘finest picture hall in Keighley’.
‘The cinemas of Keighley & the Aire Valley’ incorrectly gives the opening as July/August 1914, but that relates to the incorporation of a company called Oxford Hall (Keighley) Ltd with a capital of £1000 in £1 shares which was set up to acquire the business already operating at the Oxford Hall.
The newspaper report claimed the original cinema held 400 and had been enlarged to hold 600. The wider and longer Ritz would hold 1600. There was a Wurlitzer Unit orchestra and a Holophane Duo Phantom System of coloured lighting. There were Morality Lighting fittings around the walls. The Ritz employed a rear projection system with a translucent screen.
Bentley’s sole cinema, when it opened its projectors were supplied by Gaumont, from their branch in Leeds. An A.W.H. sound system was installed in September 1931. Depending on the configuration AWH’s installations ranged from £400 to £750. Payment was either cash within 14 days of installing, or 18-months on hire purchase. There was a £50 installation charge which covered an engineer for two weeks. Thereafter, service support was £2 weekly or £5 monthly. It is telling that the vastly more expensive Western Electric system was installed around 1935.
According to Kinematograph Weekly of Thursday 18 August 1921, the cinema was formally opened on the Monday of the previous week: Monday 8 August 1921. The ‘gallery’ was 60ft wide and seated 420. The decoration was ‘Greek key type’ with a silver, black and gold colourscheme and copper-plated lamps. “Music is from an unseen orchestra.”
The fire was on Friday 2 February 1940.
It broke out in the operating box, 45 minutes into a performance.
See the two newspaper reports in the ‘Photos’ section.
Leeds Arena was not built on this cinema. The Arena is elsewhere. The current Google Maps satellite view (June 2024) shows the cinema has been demolished and the site awaits development.
The projection was from the back of the stalls and, due to a central cast iron column, was off-axis. The beams had an upward angle. The console of the Victorian organ was relocated to an orchestra area created below the screen, which looks to have had a curved barrier. An organ blower driven by an electric motor was installed, very crudely, and located in front of the rather trashed organ behind the screen. The two U-shaped galleries meant that people in the side arms of the U (where the seats faced across to the other side) had to sit askew in their seats and/or crank their heads to one side to look sideways at the screen. This is illustrated in uploaded photos from 1951 before renovation started.
On the Google Map, the marker for the Olympic should be touching the left of the marker for ‘Mind the Gap’.
The location on the map is not accurate. It was actually on Park Road. Having overlaid a 1934 OS 25-inch map on the Google satellite view: the site of Western is (to a very close approximation) on the north side of Park Road opposite Hawkshead Drive.
The Palladium cinema was created in what had been the 1896 Queen’s Market hall. The entrance to the building was on Back Crescent Street which was parallel to Marine Road Central (the promenade). The sign still visible on a gable end points to the entrance to a passage through the promenade buildings to the back street. There were lights and cases of posters etc, but paying etc took place at the entrance to the building in Back Crescent Street. The 1933 and 1913 25-inch OS Maps confirm this.
In December 1948 a 16 year old boy, charged with setting fire to the stage area of the hall, was remanded for psychiatric assessment and treatment.
The GBPC Ltd acquired the four Pavilion cinemas when created and floated in April 1927. The process of acquisition was completed on 20 May, and Electric Pavilions Ltd (i.e. Mr & Mrs Israel Davis) hosted a farewell party for employees and friends at the Shepherd’s Bush Pavilion on Saturday 4 June 1927.
So the sentence “The Pavilion Cinema was taken over by Gaumont British Theatres in 1923” is not correct.
In the above, it should be the COMET not Coronet cinema.
The ‘Thorpe St and Old Cemetery Road’ location was taken by me from a local history web page; and is wrong. The road running alongside the auditorium is now called Northgate. Thorpe Road is the side road at the projection room end; and Henrietta Street is the side road at the screen end.
The correct postcode is TS24 0HH. Houses 176 to 188 Northgate are on the site.
The opening was Wednesday 4 March 1914. The report in the local newspaper described it as a converted brewery building.
The renaming occurred in August 1944.
Please see the Photos section.
The cinema reopened as the COSY on Monday 3 November 1930.
The Electrocord sound system (without the ‘h’) was from Butchers who also produced British B films. I suspect it was a flawed system as it always seems to have been replaced after a few years, usually by Western Electric. Buy cheap, buy twice!
Alas, the display case doesn’t have a film title to narrow down the date. But it does have an advert “Shop at the Co-op” which is ironic as the building (with rear extension and new front) is a Co-op supermarket. There are no traces of the cinema in the public areas, though I have heard that some unused spaces have traces of the origins.
‘Sixty Glorious Years’ is being shown, which was in the week commencing Monday 26 December 1938. A year later, there was the wartime blackout.
The post code and map location are wrong. A close fit is Bradford BD1 2ER; the site of Bradford College’s Advanced Technology Centre. The college had acquired the hotel and theatre site in the very early 1970s.
The 1952 fire was not in the gallery, nor did it break through the roof.
According to the Yorkshire Observer on 25 January 1952 the fire was in the stage area and it “destroyed the cinema screen and seriously damaged the stage and decorations”. A fire officer was reported: “Luckily we managed to confine the outbreak to the stage, but another ten minutes and the whole of the cinema would have probably been alight”.
In 1941 the Ministry of Supply took over the premises (presumably for wartime purposes such as storage, as happened elsewhere). In 1949 the local paper carried a rumour of it reopening as a cinema, but the Ministry of Works extended the lease and repurposed it for the GPO around 1957. After years of standing derelict, a branch of Sainsbury’s was built on the site and opened in December 1969. It closed in January 1982. Google Streetview now (2022) shows a gym in the former supermarket building.
This property is the former TEMPERANCE HALL, which was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 (along with the EMPIRE).
On the 1927 OS 25-inch map (see Photos section), this property is marked as ‘Hall’. The EMPIRE, set back from Chaloner Street, is marked as ‘Picture Theatre’. The only other Guisborough cinema I have found mention of is the PRIORY. It is mentioned a couple of times in The Kinematograph Weekly: July 1917 in an advert quoting a letter from manager Ted Mawdsley; and December 1917 in a promotion for a film booking. Mawdsley went bankrupt in 1922. He told the hearing that he started the PRIORY in 1916 but had to close it (by 1922) because renters would not accept his bookings. This would explain why the PRIORY is absent from the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 and from the (next known extant) KYB-1927; and why the venue is a ‘Hall’ on the 1927 OS map. From KYB-1927 to KYB-1954 the EMPIRE is Guisborough’s sole cinema listed. I have found a 1952 report of a CARLTON ballroom in Guisborough. The venue in this article is the TEMPERANCE HALL which became the short-lived PRIORY cinema.
Edward Mawdsley owned the PRIORY cinema. The PRIORY is mentioned a couple of times in The Kinematograph Weekly: July 1917 in an advert quoting a letter from manager Ted Mawdsley; and December 1917 in a promotion for a film booking. Mawdsley went bankrupt in 1922. He told the hearing that he started at the PRIORY in 1916 but had to close the venue (by 1922) because renters would not accept his bookings. The PRIORY looks to have later become the CARLTON ballroom. From Kinematograph Year Book 1927, the EMPIRE is the sole cinema listed for Guisborough.
In the local newspaper the Royalty advertised as being on ‘Baffin Street’, which is the steep street on the right of the photo of Watson Street. Talkies, a Western Electric system, were installed around early March 1929. The owners also installed sound at the same time at the Cinerama on South Tay Street.
According to the Kinematograph Weekly of 30 March 1911,the Oxford Hall opened in the week commencing 20 March 1911. Entrance was 2d, 4d and 6d. No expense had been spared to make it the ‘finest picture hall in Keighley’.
‘The cinemas of Keighley & the Aire Valley’ incorrectly gives the opening as July/August 1914, but that relates to the incorporation of a company called Oxford Hall (Keighley) Ltd with a capital of £1000 in £1 shares which was set up to acquire the business already operating at the Oxford Hall.
The newspaper report claimed the original cinema held 400 and had been enlarged to hold 600. The wider and longer Ritz would hold 1600. There was a Wurlitzer Unit orchestra and a Holophane Duo Phantom System of coloured lighting. There were Morality Lighting fittings around the walls. The Ritz employed a rear projection system with a translucent screen.
Bentley’s sole cinema, when it opened its projectors were supplied by Gaumont, from their branch in Leeds. An A.W.H. sound system was installed in September 1931. Depending on the configuration AWH’s installations ranged from £400 to £750. Payment was either cash within 14 days of installing, or 18-months on hire purchase. There was a £50 installation charge which covered an engineer for two weeks. Thereafter, service support was £2 weekly or £5 monthly. It is telling that the vastly more expensive Western Electric system was installed around 1935.