Empress Picture House

HJHill on May 7, 2013 at 1:31 pm

G J Mellor’s “Cinemas of Bradford” gives the seating capacity as 650, when first opened; reducing later to 476. KYB for 1942 and 1947 give 547 seats; and KYB 1954 gives 476 (the result of installing cinemascope?).

As the 1934 aerial photo shows, the location on Legrams Lane was rather isolated, with few houses in immediate proximity.

Also in the photo, it looks as though the conversion to sound involved knocking through the wall behind the screen and constructing a speaker/horn chamber on the outside (a technique used also at the Grange cinema).