Picture House

In Middleham, in the Wensleydale region of the Yorkshire Dales, in North Yorkshire, the Picture House opened in 1922.

The owner/operator was William Coates Sykes, a local electrical engineer and coachbuilder who had acquired this market town’s gas works prior to World War I.

He built the Picture House and a house for himself as a single complex. Hedging his bets, he designed the single-storey building with a level floor, so it could double as a dance hall - and, if it failed with films, it could be easily converted into commercial use. Nevertheless, in that area, it was unusual in being a purpose-built cinema.

There was never any external signage. (With a population of well under 1,000, there was hardly any need for such an extravagance!).

Films were initially projected from the rear of the hall, so presumably 16mm projection was used - or perhaps not as, following a fire (date not known), a projection box was built outside the original building, and Kalee 6 projectors were installed.

Every three weeks or so, the seats were set against the walls and the cinema became a dance hall for the evening.

When the talkies arrived, a sound on disc system was initially installed, but this was soon replaced by an AWH system.

In the early-1930’s the seating capacity was given in the Kinematograph Years Books as 350. (They also maintained that there was a “Dance Hall attached”, but the cinema auditorium doubled as the dance hall.) By the 1950’s the declared seating capacity had reduced to 200.

William Sykes relinquished control of the Picture House in the early-1940’s, when it was acquired by Lesley Yeoman Dobson, who ran the modest Wensley Cinemas circuit.

Lesley Dobson closed the Picture House in 1960. The last projectionist was Gordon Roper: in 1966, by which time he was living in William Sykes' former house, he took over the disused cinema and converted it into Middleham Motors, the commercial use that Sykes once envisaged.

The building remains as Middleham Motors. The external projection box appears to have been removed.

(Original research by Kate Taylor, Chair, Mercia Cinema Society.)

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