Regal Cinema

After a dispute with the trustees of the Temperance Hall (Plaza) in Skipton, Mark Morris withdrew from that concern and opened a new cinema on Keighley Road which he called the Morriseum, designed by architect J.W. Broughton. It had a better location and was larger than the Plaza Cinema, and with 927 seats on two levels, it opened on 4th February 1929 with the Fritz Lang film “The Spy”(Spione).

It was a stylish building in the Art Nouveau style, traces of which still remain.

It was renamed Regal Super Cinema by 1930 and in 1936 it became an Odeon property owned by Oscar Deutsch and was eventually re-named Odeon in June 1950. In December 1967, the Rank Organisation sold it on to Classic Cinemas Ltd. and it was renamed Classic Cinema. Taken over by the Hutchinson circuit in 1971, they sub-divided the building with bingo in the stalls and two cinemas in the former circle, each seating 150. It was re-named Regal Cinema again.

When the owner Mr Hutchinson died, his assets were sold to the Apollo Leisure group, but they decided not to operate the Regal Cinema and it closed suddenly on 10th September 1987 with Paul Hogan in “Crocodile Dundee” and Timothy Dalton in “The Living Daylights”. The building was put up for sale and by the early 1990’s had become a nightclub. This use continues today and is currently a bar called the No 3, and nightclubs known as Bliss & The Vestry.

The older Plaza Cinema in town is thankfully still on films as the only remaining cinema in Skipton.

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