Cosy Corner Picture House
Low Street,
Keighley,
BD21
Low Street,
Keighley,
BD21
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Located on the south side of Low Street down an alley, in Keighley, West Yorkshire. A conversion of former Auction Rooms, the Cosy Corner Picture House was opened in August 1912. Around 1930 it was equipped with a Western Electric(WE) sound system and had a 17 feet wide proscenium. It was independently operated and was closed in March 1957.
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Ken Roe
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The Cosy Corner Picture House opened 26 August 1912 in the former saleroom of Weatherhead’s auctions. It closed 30 March 1957. It is listed in the 1914 Kinematograph Year Book as having 800 seats and being operated by the Cosy Corner Picture House Co Ltd. The Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, revised in 1913 and published in 1919, shows the cinema was down a side-alley on the south side of Low Street. The 1890 OS map shows the premises described as Auction Rooms.
In the Keighley Year Book 1917 the seating capacity was claimed to be higher: ‘Cosy Corner Picture House Low Street. Proprietors Cosy Corner Picture House Ltd. This highly popular place of entertainment was opened in June (sic) 1912 and has accommodation for 1,000 people. High-class and up to date pictures have made the “Cosy” a household word in both borough & district. The management is in the capable hands of Mr Arthur H Needham who has had a wide experience in the world of entertainment. Secretary M.P. Cryer, Accountant.’
By 1938 Cryer was the sole owner. Western Electric sound came in 1930 and Cinemascope in 1954 (when the capacity was 600).
On a Keighley local history web page, in 2008 someone put: ‘I can remember going there when I was quite young and getting in on a Saturday morning by taking a glass jam jar. You were given a stick of barley sugar and had to sit in the PLANKS first 3 or 4 rows which were wooden and right under the screen. Came out with stiff necks. The cinema was off Low Street, down a little alley by The Fifty Shilling Tailors.’
I really have my doubts about the pictures of the cinema posted onto here. The location according to the old map uploaded has been destroyed, swallowed up by the Airedale Centre which was built around 1968 and updated with a new a roof in the 1980’s. The postcode of Coffee Love, approximately located where the cinema was is BD21 3PQ. The Wild’s Bakery shown is located the wrong side of the road to where the cinema used to be, and is at Low Street, Airedale Centre, with a postcode of BD21 3PP.