The Bioscope of Thursday 9 April 1914 reported that the Bradford Picture House, owned by the Bradford Cinematograph Company, was opened by the Lord Mayor & Lady Mayoress on the previous Thursday, i.e. 2 April 1914. It had a Chinese-themed café called the Café Rendezvous. Not many days earlier, 18 March 1914, the Alhambra had opened to the public. The screen of the Picture House was against the back wall of the Alhambra’s stage. The two structures would have been in construction at the same time. Old photos of the “Morley Street Waste” with a sign up declaring it to be “The site (for the) New Alhambra Variety Theatre” show the triangular patch of land bordered by Morley Street, on the left, Great Horton Road, on the right, and the municipal Windsor Halls complex to the south.
Shortly after the Capitol closed (Sat 18 Jan 1936) on 22 January 1936 The Era reported:
“Many difficulties will confront the architects responsible for the rebuilding of the Capitol, Haymarket. There is an old stream under the site, for one, then the present circle will be extended to make a false roof.
It is unnecessary to the new cinema and the LCC will not allow the commercial use of a space above an auditorium."
This would suggests that there were no offices over the Gaumont. Or were there?
Sorry, but the above Flickr photo montage is wrong.
The Carlton cinema (later Gala Berkeley) was on TCR at the north side of Stephen St which is now bridged. The site of the front of the cinema is now largely the paved area (the building line was moved back) and the retail units (T2, Chocolat, and Leon). The BFI building on Stephen St is on land abutting the rear of the site of the Carlton’s auditorium. The Odeon entrance shown in the Flickr photo is at the north end of the TCR redevelopment – approximately where the entrance to the Majestic/Continentale cinema was situated. Two old buildings remain north of the Odeon and Ben & Jerry’s – ‘YouMeSuchi’ and ‘iSmash’.
Sorry, but the Flickr photo montage in the above link is wrong.
The Carlton cinema (later Gala Berkeley) was on TCR at the north side of Stephen St which is now bridged. The site of the front of the cinema is now largely the paved area (the building line was moved back) and some retail units (T2, Chocolat, and Leon). The BFI building on Stephen St is on land abutting the rear of the site of the Carlton’s auditorium. The Odeon entrance shown in the photo is at the north end of the TCR redevelopment – approximately where the entrance to the Majestic/Continentale cinema was situated. Two old buildings remain north of the Odeon and Ben & Jerry’s – ‘YouMeSuchi’ and ‘iSmash’.
The postcode and location mark are wrong. The Odeon Shannon Corner was in the angle where Burlington Road meets the A3 Malden Way. The text above correctly says that Harveys or Bensons for Beds (Google gives Harveys, the map on her gives Harveys) and the associated car park are on the site of the Odeon. The postcode is be KT3 4LP. I have established this from investigating Decca’s use of the site between Malden Way, Burlington Road and Albert Road. See my uploaded photograph.
The Yorkshire Evening Post of 28 Dec 1928 reported that Western Electric sound equipment had been installed at the Rialto. It catered for sound-on-disc (Vitaphone) and sound-on-film (Movietone). There were four horn speakers behind the screen covering almost all of the screen. Two were optimised for speech. Valves in the amplifier cost £30 each. The horns and the gramophone parts were manufactured by HMV (The Gramophone Co Ltd of Hayes). The whole installation cost £7,000.
The following was interesting reading. I found it in ‘Cinema News & Property Gazette’ (a cinema exhibition industry trade paper) dated Tuesday 29 October 1957.
Granada TV have sought planning permission from Hendon Council to use the Regal Finchley Road NW for studios and offices. The application has been granted on condition that no more than twenty people are employed there at night between 11.30 pm and 8 am and the premises are not used in any manner which in the opinion of the planning sub-committee “is detrimental to the amenities of the locality”. The outside of the building will be unaltered.
The Bioscope of 9 Sept 1931 has an article about the Astoria. Above the entrance foyer there was a café for 150. Below the entrance foyer, due to the fall of the land (or excavation of the of the sloping site) there was a ‘lofty’ ballroom with a spectators' balcony. We tend to forget the customer-apartheid maintained by cinemas and theatres (even those built in the 1930s). Customers for the cheap front stalls seats had to descend a long flight of concrete steps down the side of the building to a less glamorous entrance nearer the stage.
The original sound system was the British-made Naturetone disc and sound-on-film system (newspaper report at the time, and KYB 1931). Within a couple of years it had been replaced with another fringe brand, Ultramonic (KYB 1933).
Naturetone was described as sibilant and tinny after a trade show at the London Hippodrome in 1929.
The 1928 reopening was on Saturday 20 July. The balcony accommodated 124, the stalls 540. The stalls floor sloped down from the back and down from the proscenium; so occupants of front rows would not have to crane their heads back. The projectors were Ernemann Imperator II. The screen was 20ft wide; and there was an orchestra of four. (Source: West Sussex County Times 20 July 1929)
In The Stage of 24 February 1910, the Palace Theatre Barnoldswick was advertising for ‘good dramatic companies . . playing three or four dramas a week’. The manager was a ‘Geo Holloway’. On the 25-inch 1909 OS map St James' Square is what is now called St James' Road.
I made an error in the text above. The stark (white) shape with the awnings out over the pavement is the lower half of the existing (2017) M&S. The Savoy site was acquired to build the upper half of the M&S store.
The traces of wall detail exposed on the site of the demolished Savoy is probably the nearest we’ll ever get to seeing what the interior was like.
The cinema is demolished, not closed (did I post wrong?)
The street address was Keighley Road (not Swadford Street), Skipton; the same as the Regal which was nigh opposite (as in the photo).
A business called Fulton’s Foods, part of a large retail building, sits on the site of the Premier. It is to the right of Poundland in the Streetview (my error). BD23 2DZ is the correct postcode and is presumably for the entire retail building (of many businesses) which has its principal entrance on Swadford Street (but the Premier was not on Swadford St).
In the 1927 Kinematograph Year Book the Sedbergh entry is just “Cinema” with no other information at all. In KYB 1928 there is a full entry; it is being run by a Victor Besso, who is still running it in KYB 1933 when there is no sound system listed. In KYB 1935 it has an Electrocord sound system and is being run by W D Clark (no ‘e’). It is still Electrocord and Clark in the KYB 1957 entry.
The building is interesting. If the auditorium rake followed the fall of the land, an entrance at the road end would have been at the screen end. Otherwise, the rake would have gone below ground level at the screen end away from the road. A blocked up side exit is just discernible in the above photo and in the Google Streetview.
HJHill
commented about
Cinemaon
Jun 23, 2016 at 1:14 pm
The ‘Cinema’ was not listed in Kinematograph Year Book 1928, but is in KYB 1931 and 1933, with no sound system. 285 is the seating capacity in KYB 1954 and 1957.
Morrison was a company based in Leicester supplying rectifiers and sound systems to smaller venues in the UK and Ireland.
On 2016 Google Streetview the site of the Cinema Palace is a ‘Carphone Warehouse’ adjacent to Goole Market Hall. Carphone Warehouse’s address and postcode is: 11 Boothferry Rd, Humberside, DN14 5DE
To the right of the Cinema Palace is the (still-standing) Goole Market Hall. A roundabout now occupies the area at the bottom right of the photograph, with the clock tower in the centre.
‘The Egyptian’ was released in 1954 in the US. So this would date to around 1955/6. Starring Victor Mature and Jean Simmonds it would have been another Hollywood mini-epic where the leading man’s mammary development out-scaled that of the leading lady!
The entrance was beneath the “Captain” part of the sign. One shop unit wide, leading through to the cinema built behind the, then, existing shops.
In the photo, above the very left of the sign and the “C” there is a rusting box (a fireman’s off switch as used on neon signs) and two brackets higher up (possibly sign fixings).
The photo shows what looks like dressing room windows and, certainly, the scenery loading dock. There’s not a great height to the stage block for flying scenery etc.
The ‘Overview’ text has got the sequencing of the names wrong. I do not have a complete set of Kinematograph Year Books, but those I have give the following:
KYB 1914 – Victoria Assembly Rooms.
KYB 1927, 29, 31, 38 and 40 – Charnley’s Pictures.
KYB 1942, 44, 47, 54, and 57 – Victoria Cinema.
For the latter two names, the address is Victoria Hall, Eanam Bridge.
As shown in the fire brigade ladder photo, the cinema was labelled ‘Victoria’ when subsidence forced its closure and demolition.
The Bioscope of Thursday 9 April 1914 reported that the Bradford Picture House, owned by the Bradford Cinematograph Company, was opened by the Lord Mayor & Lady Mayoress on the previous Thursday, i.e. 2 April 1914. It had a Chinese-themed café called the Café Rendezvous. Not many days earlier, 18 March 1914, the Alhambra had opened to the public. The screen of the Picture House was against the back wall of the Alhambra’s stage. The two structures would have been in construction at the same time. Old photos of the “Morley Street Waste” with a sign up declaring it to be “The site (for the) New Alhambra Variety Theatre” show the triangular patch of land bordered by Morley Street, on the left, Great Horton Road, on the right, and the municipal Windsor Halls complex to the south.
The pin on the map is wrong. I have uploaded an aerial view that pinpoints the building at the junction of Bridge and Croft Street.
Shortly after the Capitol closed (Sat 18 Jan 1936) on 22 January 1936 The Era reported:
“Many difficulties will confront the architects responsible for the rebuilding of the Capitol, Haymarket. There is an old stream under the site, for one, then the present circle will be extended to make a false roof.
It is unnecessary to the new cinema and the LCC will not allow the commercial use of a space above an auditorium."
This would suggests that there were no offices over the Gaumont. Or were there?
Sorry, but the above Flickr photo montage is wrong.
The Carlton cinema (later Gala Berkeley) was on TCR at the north side of Stephen St which is now bridged. The site of the front of the cinema is now largely the paved area (the building line was moved back) and the retail units (T2, Chocolat, and Leon). The BFI building on Stephen St is on land abutting the rear of the site of the Carlton’s auditorium. The Odeon entrance shown in the Flickr photo is at the north end of the TCR redevelopment – approximately where the entrance to the Majestic/Continentale cinema was situated. Two old buildings remain north of the Odeon and Ben & Jerry’s – ‘YouMeSuchi’ and ‘iSmash’.
Sorry, but the Flickr photo montage in the above link is wrong.
The Carlton cinema (later Gala Berkeley) was on TCR at the north side of Stephen St which is now bridged. The site of the front of the cinema is now largely the paved area (the building line was moved back) and some retail units (T2, Chocolat, and Leon). The BFI building on Stephen St is on land abutting the rear of the site of the Carlton’s auditorium. The Odeon entrance shown in the photo is at the north end of the TCR redevelopment – approximately where the entrance to the Majestic/Continentale cinema was situated. Two old buildings remain north of the Odeon and Ben & Jerry’s – ‘YouMeSuchi’ and ‘iSmash’.
The offices of the BFI (British Film Institute) are on Stephen Street in a building that abuts the rear of the site of the Carlton’s auditorium.
The postcode and location mark are wrong. The Odeon Shannon Corner was in the angle where Burlington Road meets the A3 Malden Way. The text above correctly says that Harveys or Bensons for Beds (Google gives Harveys, the map on her gives Harveys) and the associated car park are on the site of the Odeon. The postcode is be KT3 4LP. I have established this from investigating Decca’s use of the site between Malden Way, Burlington Road and Albert Road. See my uploaded photograph.
The Yorkshire Evening Post of 28 Dec 1928 reported that Western Electric sound equipment had been installed at the Rialto. It catered for sound-on-disc (Vitaphone) and sound-on-film (Movietone). There were four horn speakers behind the screen covering almost all of the screen. Two were optimised for speech. Valves in the amplifier cost £30 each. The horns and the gramophone parts were manufactured by HMV (The Gramophone Co Ltd of Hayes). The whole installation cost £7,000.
The following was interesting reading. I found it in ‘Cinema News & Property Gazette’ (a cinema exhibition industry trade paper) dated Tuesday 29 October 1957.
Granada TV have sought planning permission from Hendon Council to use the Regal Finchley Road NW for studios and offices. The application has been granted on condition that no more than twenty people are employed there at night between 11.30 pm and 8 am and the premises are not used in any manner which in the opinion of the planning sub-committee “is detrimental to the amenities of the locality”. The outside of the building will be unaltered.
The opening night as a cinema was Wednesday 5 September 1934. The feature was ‘The Private Life of Don Juan’ starring Douglas Fairbanks.
The Bioscope of 9 Sept 1931 has an article about the Astoria. Above the entrance foyer there was a café for 150. Below the entrance foyer, due to the fall of the land (or excavation of the of the sloping site) there was a ‘lofty’ ballroom with a spectators' balcony. We tend to forget the customer-apartheid maintained by cinemas and theatres (even those built in the 1930s). Customers for the cheap front stalls seats had to descend a long flight of concrete steps down the side of the building to a less glamorous entrance nearer the stage.
The original sound system was the British-made Naturetone disc and sound-on-film system (newspaper report at the time, and KYB 1931). Within a couple of years it had been replaced with another fringe brand, Ultramonic (KYB 1933).
Naturetone was described as sibilant and tinny after a trade show at the London Hippodrome in 1929.
The 1928 reopening was on Saturday 20 July. The balcony accommodated 124, the stalls 540. The stalls floor sloped down from the back and down from the proscenium; so occupants of front rows would not have to crane their heads back. The projectors were Ernemann Imperator II. The screen was 20ft wide; and there was an orchestra of four. (Source: West Sussex County Times 20 July 1929)
In The Stage of 24 February 1910, the Palace Theatre Barnoldswick was advertising for ‘good dramatic companies . . playing three or four dramas a week’. The manager was a ‘Geo Holloway’. On the 25-inch 1909 OS map St James' Square is what is now called St James' Road.
I made an error in the text above. The stark (white) shape with the awnings out over the pavement is the lower half of the existing (2017) M&S. The Savoy site was acquired to build the upper half of the M&S store.
The traces of wall detail exposed on the site of the demolished Savoy is probably the nearest we’ll ever get to seeing what the interior was like.
The cinema is demolished, not closed (did I post wrong?)
The street address was Keighley Road (not Swadford Street), Skipton; the same as the Regal which was nigh opposite (as in the photo).
A business called Fulton’s Foods, part of a large retail building, sits on the site of the Premier. It is to the right of Poundland in the Streetview (my error). BD23 2DZ is the correct postcode and is presumably for the entire retail building (of many businesses) which has its principal entrance on Swadford Street (but the Premier was not on Swadford St).
UPDATE – The Joshua Project closed in September 2016. I am not aware of any plans being announced for the building.
In the 1927 Kinematograph Year Book the Sedbergh entry is just “Cinema” with no other information at all. In KYB 1928 there is a full entry; it is being run by a Victor Besso, who is still running it in KYB 1933 when there is no sound system listed. In KYB 1935 it has an Electrocord sound system and is being run by W D Clark (no ‘e’). It is still Electrocord and Clark in the KYB 1957 entry.
The building is interesting. If the auditorium rake followed the fall of the land, an entrance at the road end would have been at the screen end. Otherwise, the rake would have gone below ground level at the screen end away from the road. A blocked up side exit is just discernible in the above photo and in the Google Streetview.
The ‘Cinema’ was not listed in Kinematograph Year Book 1928, but is in KYB 1931 and 1933, with no sound system. 285 is the seating capacity in KYB 1954 and 1957.
Morrison was a company based in Leicester supplying rectifiers and sound systems to smaller venues in the UK and Ireland.
On 2016 Google Streetview the site of the Cinema Palace is a ‘Carphone Warehouse’ adjacent to Goole Market Hall. Carphone Warehouse’s address and postcode is: 11 Boothferry Rd, Humberside, DN14 5DE
To the right of the Cinema Palace is the (still-standing) Goole Market Hall. A roundabout now occupies the area at the bottom right of the photograph, with the clock tower in the centre.
‘The Egyptian’ was released in 1954 in the US. So this would date to around 1955/6. Starring Victor Mature and Jean Simmonds it would have been another Hollywood mini-epic where the leading man’s mammary development out-scaled that of the leading lady!
The entrance was beneath the “Captain” part of the sign. One shop unit wide, leading through to the cinema built behind the, then, existing shops.
In the photo, above the very left of the sign and the “C” there is a rusting box (a fireman’s off switch as used on neon signs) and two brackets higher up (possibly sign fixings).
The photo shows what looks like dressing room windows and, certainly, the scenery loading dock. There’s not a great height to the stage block for flying scenery etc.
The ‘Overview’ text has got the sequencing of the names wrong. I do not have a complete set of Kinematograph Year Books, but those I have give the following:
KYB 1914 – Victoria Assembly Rooms.
KYB 1927, 29, 31, 38 and 40 – Charnley’s Pictures.
KYB 1942, 44, 47, 54, and 57 – Victoria Cinema.
For the latter two names, the address is Victoria Hall, Eanam Bridge.
As shown in the fire brigade ladder photo, the cinema was labelled ‘Victoria’ when subsidence forced its closure and demolition.