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 following text is from a ‘RootsWeb’ page and was by “Linda Hindley” whose parents acquired the building for its return to roller-skating in the 1950s. She credits a Bolton Evening News article for some of the facts.
“The Olympia roller skating rink was erected on the site in 1909 and opened on Saturday Sept 25 of that year. The admission charge was 6d and hire of skates a further 6d and there were 3 sessions daily. The Olympia only lasted 3 years and closed on 27 May 1912.
Later that year, it opened as a picture house with the same name and had the largest seating capacity of any picture house in Bolton. On Sept 15 1929 it became the Regal and reopened as a ‘talkie’ cinema. From Sept 1929 until Sept 1952 the Regal led a relatively untroubled life except for hooliganism which resulted in destruction of many seats.
In (1952) the Progressive Publicity Co Ltd, a Manchester firm, took over the lease and Reginald Liversedge, the well known organist was appointed manager. On November 24 the cinema once again changed its name, this time to the Astor and the first film was ‘Le Ronde’. The major decline in the Bolton cinemas began in the mid 50s. Between 1955 and the end of 1959 eight closed, the first being the Astor. The building then was converted back to roller skating by my parents and was opened by footballer Nat Lofthouse on November 9th 1955."
The Victoria Assembly Rooms in Market Street were designed and owned by a Councillor Holgate. There was a large, ballroom-sized, upper room, the ‘Victoria Hall’, beneath which was the ‘Lesser Victoria Hall’.
In 1909 and 1912, Andrews travelling pictures had sessions at the upper hall. In January 1914 it was advertising as the ‘Picture House, Victoria Hall’. It is listed in the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 as the ‘Victoria Hall’; with no other information.
On 29 May 1922 it closed for extensive alterations; and reopened on 18 September 1922 as the Savoy Cinema. The two halls had been amalgamated as one, creating an auditorium with a balcony.
According to ‘Chronicles of Pendle Picture Palaces’ (by Peter Sagar for the Mercia Cinema Society) talkies debuted on 25 May 1931 with ‘General Electric British Talking Pictures’ and a ‘Westone Rubber Sound Screen’. However, KYB 1931 gives the sound system as ‘Edibell’. KYB 1935 to KYB 1949 has ‘BTP’. In KYB 1950 this changed to Western Electric, which looks to coincide with the ownership passing from ‘Victoria Picturedrome (Colne) Ltd’ to Star Cinemas.
From KYB 1935 to KYB 1949 the capacity is 900. It is 806 in KYB 1950; 807 KYB 1954 and 1957 (the later indicates ‘CinemaScope’).
The last film was Ted Ray in ‘Please Turn Over’ on Saturday 10 June 1960.
The horizontal line on the wall at the top of the windows is where the roof of the lean-to (the gents) was continued to create a covered space. The windows had shutters on the outside and curtains on the inside. Beneath each window there is an air brick: as kids we’d put our ears to them and listen to the films!
To the right, a ramp leads down and passes under the rear of the small stage. The front exits at either side of the proscenium led to this passage way. There were metal gates at the pavement; and metal railings at the left.
The streetview is looking at the site of a ‘Hall’ marked on an 1890 street map of Colne. On that map there is an area of open land between the lower side of the hall and West Street further down. The terrace gable end is there on the 1890 map.
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.
The following text is from a ‘RootsWeb’ page and was by “Linda Hindley” whose parents acquired the building for its return to roller-skating in the 1950s. She credits a Bolton Evening News article for some of the facts.
“The Olympia roller skating rink was erected on the site in 1909 and opened on Saturday Sept 25 of that year. The admission charge was 6d and hire of skates a further 6d and there were 3 sessions daily. The Olympia only lasted 3 years and closed on 27 May 1912.
Later that year, it opened as a picture house with the same name and had the largest seating capacity of any picture house in Bolton. On Sept 15 1929 it became the Regal and reopened as a ‘talkie’ cinema. From Sept 1929 until Sept 1952 the Regal led a relatively untroubled life except for hooliganism which resulted in destruction of many seats.
In (1952) the Progressive Publicity Co Ltd, a Manchester firm, took over the lease and Reginald Liversedge, the well known organist was appointed manager. On November 24 the cinema once again changed its name, this time to the Astor and the first film was ‘Le Ronde’. The major decline in the Bolton cinemas began in the mid 50s. Between 1955 and the end of 1959 eight closed, the first being the Astor. The building then was converted back to roller skating by my parents and was opened by footballer Nat Lofthouse on November 9th 1955."
The Victoria Assembly Rooms in Market Street were designed and owned by a Councillor Holgate. There was a large, ballroom-sized, upper room, the ‘Victoria Hall’, beneath which was the ‘Lesser Victoria Hall’.
In 1909 and 1912, Andrews travelling pictures had sessions at the upper hall. In January 1914 it was advertising as the ‘Picture House, Victoria Hall’. It is listed in the Kinematograph Year Book 1914 as the ‘Victoria Hall’; with no other information.
On 29 May 1922 it closed for extensive alterations; and reopened on 18 September 1922 as the Savoy Cinema. The two halls had been amalgamated as one, creating an auditorium with a balcony.
According to ‘Chronicles of Pendle Picture Palaces’ (by Peter Sagar for the Mercia Cinema Society) talkies debuted on 25 May 1931 with ‘General Electric British Talking Pictures’ and a ‘Westone Rubber Sound Screen’. However, KYB 1931 gives the sound system as ‘Edibell’. KYB 1935 to KYB 1949 has ‘BTP’. In KYB 1950 this changed to Western Electric, which looks to coincide with the ownership passing from ‘Victoria Picturedrome (Colne) Ltd’ to Star Cinemas.
From KYB 1935 to KYB 1949 the capacity is 900. It is 806 in KYB 1950; 807 KYB 1954 and 1957 (the later indicates ‘CinemaScope’).
The last film was Ted Ray in ‘Please Turn Over’ on Saturday 10 June 1960.
The horizontal line on the wall at the top of the windows is where the roof of the lean-to (the gents) was continued to create a covered space. The windows had shutters on the outside and curtains on the inside. Beneath each window there is an air brick: as kids we’d put our ears to them and listen to the films!
To the right, a ramp leads down and passes under the rear of the small stage. The front exits at either side of the proscenium led to this passage way. There were metal gates at the pavement; and metal railings at the left.
The streetview is looking at the site of a ‘Hall’ marked on an 1890 street map of Colne. On that map there is an area of open land between the lower side of the hall and West Street further down. The terrace gable end is there on the 1890 map.