G J Mellor’s “Cinemas of Bradford” gives the cinema owners as Messrs Holmes, Pickles, Whiteside and Barnett; and the ballroom owner as Herbert Shutt. ‘Bert Shutt’, employed my father on the decorating of the ballroom.
The “Ideal” is almost opposite the end of Carbottom Road. The Rooley Lane junction is a distance away.
The 1966 BBC television play “Where the buffalo roam”, written by Dennis Potter and starring a young Hywel Bennett, featured a scene at the entrance to the Castle. Bennett’s young character was admiring and fantasising about cowboy films, stills of which were on display at the cinema.
I’ve uploaded images of the KYB entries for Otley for 1931, 1942, 1947 and 1954. 1942 lists both the Beech Hill and the Westgate cinema; and gives the latter as 580 seats. In 1947 and 1954 the Beech Hill is given as 686 and 679 seats, respectively. It’s odd.
Correction: the site is not the car park. That is beyond the flag and the tree. The cinema site is mostly behind a high board fence with young trees visible. The clue in the Google Streetview is the brick pillar and iron railings. They are still there; as is one of the red brick and white faïence corners of the cinema.
The KYB 1931 has it listed as the Burras Lane Cinema. So its demise was after 1931 and before 1934. The proprietor was given as A E Shields, 29 Kirkgate, Bradford.
The Kinematograph Year Book for 1954 gives the screen as 30ft6 by 18ft3; there were 1088 seats. The late Colin Sutton’s web site reports that cinemascope was installed “circa 1954”, which would account for a screen 2ft6 wider than the original proscenium. Interestingly, the 1947 and 1954 capacities are the same; so no seats were removed due to the larger screen.
In the Kinematograph Year Book for 1947, the Myrtle had 900 seats. Prices ranged from 10d to 2/6; pricier than the Hippodrome which was charging 6d to 1/6 at the time. The KYE for 1954 gives the prices as 7d to 2/7; the Hippodrome was a branch of Woolworth’s by then. In 1954 the screen at the Myrtle was 16ft6 by 12ft6.
The Hippodrome is listed in the Kinematograph Year Book for 1914. It was owned by the Bingley Hippodrome Company. In the KYB for 1947 the capacity is 769 seats; and the same company was running it.
The Google maps pin point (above, right) is completely wrong (it’s pinned on Main Street in another community). The postcode BD16 2HZ is correct. Number 55 is a guess at the Main Street number. The site is now part of a car park next to estate agents at number 53. The Hippodrome was (probably) at the north end of the car park with the Water Works premises in the photo on the rest of the car park right next to the present estate agents.
Follow the right hand side of the curve of Bingley Main Street and the Hippodrome can be seen as the last building. The site of the Myrtle cinema is back down the road, behind the camera, and also on the right hand side.
According to the Kinematograph Year Book for 1954 (the year of the photo above), seat prices ranged from 1/6 to 2/6. No seating capacity was given, though the KYB for 1947 quoted 1,080 seats.
The Morley Street entrance to the Bradford Picture House (taken in 1914). This entrance served the seats priced at one shilling and at six pence. Patrons for the cheap seats at three pence (thruppence/threppence) entered via the less well appointed entrance in Great Horton Road. Ironically, the latter is now the sole entrance to the Alhambra Studio Theatre; and the above is closed off.
House lights hung from four of the grilles. The first I recall were the Star Cinemas house-style of five-pointed stars in the horizontal cross-section. They were replaced around 1960 by drum fittings against the grilles, which gave a very stark light. I may be being misled, but the two small dimple shapes at the height of the ceiling curve are probably where two naked, clear light bulbs hung: the cleaning lights. Occasionally, someone would flick a wrong switch and their glare would hit the atmosphere.
Light through windows at the back shows how the seating extended to the very rear wall. There was a stepped seating area under the projection room. All those seats were doubles, very plushly upholstered. However, the occupants had the disruption of rear cross-aisle traffic interrupting the view of the screen. It occurs to me that, originally, the region under the projection room may have had a number of elevated family ‘boxes’ (the rear of the circle at the Torbay Cinema is an example); ripping those out at the 1933 refit would account from how an additional 37 seats were fitted in. It’s an idea!
The door that is partly hidden by the car opened onto steep metal stairs up to the projection suite which is located behind the three boarded windows. Notice the door doesn’t have the architectural finish of all other windows and doors in the building. The reason is very odd. That door was created in the early 1950s. Prior to that, the projection room stairs went down into the auditorium, meeting the cross-aisle that is served by the exit towards which the man is walking.
Beyond the car, the central shuttered door opened on to stairs down into a boiler/store room under the rear stalls.
The far shuttered door was a rear exit that started as a downward slope from the rear cross-aisle and ended in some very steep steps down to the pavement.
Behind that central panel, the two projectors were within a brick-built room. There was a corridor at the back with windows overlooking Ebenezer Place. The lone pair of port holes at the right were for a spotlight located in a room containing the gramophone and (I seem to recall) the rewind and film store facilities. The spotlight was replaced by lamps on the auditorium walls above where the usherettes stood, leaning back with the weight of a laden tray! In the late 1950s, whilst at junior school (Bell School on Southfield Lane) my dad arranged for me to be shown round by one of his friends who was a projectionist.
This is (almost) how I recall the façade from my childhood in the 1950s.
As shown, the building is a bingo hall and has a crudely made (and maintained) sign spoiling the entrance arch. The tile/slate roof has been made water-tight (cheaply) by covering it with roofing-felt/sheet. The brick lean-to was an early 1950s addition and is the gents toilets, accessible from the auditorium. The original gents was behind the two tall windows to the left of the entrance, accesible via the minute foyer. That room became a staff and storage space. At that time, the ladies toilets (windows to the right) was given a door into the auditorium. Presumably the changes were to stop traffic in/out of the auditorium.
The window to the right of the far, rear stalls, exit door was onto a corridor-like room/waiting area. There was a row of tip-up seats against the wall under the window. The internal wall facing the window carried cases for film posters. To enter the room from the foyer involved a step (or two) to be at the level of the rear stalls.
The manager’s office was in the corner beyond the exit, with a window in the angled corner of the building. I wonder what became of documents and photos kept in there. When cinemascope was installed, the manager displayed photos of the original proscenium and the new one; each with tabs open and closed.
The façade isn’t stone. The walls behind the projection room and along the exposed auditorium flank are of red brick (unusual for 1914 Bradford) with white faïence details to door and window lintels, etc; the (now decapitated) entrance feature is white faïence, and the rear of the stage is of Bradford sandstone. I recall the roof originally being slate, but could be wrong.
The mid-1950s cinemascope screen was within a rectangular box proscenium erected in front of the (now exposed) classical proscenium. It extended between the two corners at which the wall steps back to form recesses for exits. The new tabs were pale bluey/green. Those in the original proscenium were, in early 1950s, red with three horizontal gold stripes towards the bottom. Later in the 50s the auditorium was redecorated and new ceiling lamps fitted (giving a rather stark light); and splayed boards were inserted between the side corners of the new proscenium and the side walls, with gaps beneath for access to the exits.
I, too, went to the Saturday 10 a.m. children’s matinee. It was not the packed rowdy house that the repeat was at 2 p.m. (Also, if money was available, I could then go to the 2 p.m. children’s matinee at The Grange further down Great Horton Road.)
Tragically, there is now a rectangular excrescence atop the vertical tower. It houses mobile phone aerials and has been coloured to blend in with the building. Morecambe has a gem, but bespoils it. Then, Morecambe is a very sad place these days.
Dennis Sharp’s “The Picture Palace” (1969) has cross-section, plans and a 1920s façade view on pages 92 & 93.
The ground plan was not rectangular; the side wall to the left of the screen stepped in by about 9 feet. This created a decidedly odd seating layout. Stalls seats had an aisle centred on the screen with 16-seat-wide blocks to left and right, but there was a third 6-seat-wide block on the far left. Because the seats were in straight rows, the sight lines from the extra block on the left must have been dire (the screen was about 20 feet to their right). This asymmetry was repeated in the two circles. However their stepped rows of seats were on curves arranged around the screen, so sight-lines would have been better.
Projection was from the back of the lower circle. The projection suite was behind the middle five of the lower line of square windows in the photo above (i.e. with triangular tops above them).
The central bottom set of windows (with curved tops) were to a foyer fitted under the projection suite and part of the rear of the first circle. The central top set of square windows were to a foyer under the rear of the upper circle, the middle portion of which went right back to the blank wall below the balustrade*.
There were a lot of stairs to climb in there; and a lot of full-height stairwells, plus three lifts. There was no depth to the stage. There was a basement (ballroom) and a sub-basement with ventilation plant etc.
The pilasters (see the photo) divide the facade into 5 bays. From left to right, at pavement level the bays were above: a pair of exit doors for stairs down the far corner of the building; a main entrance; two shop units (one narrow, one wide); a second main entrance; a narrow shop unit.
The balustrade in the photo was not part of the cinema. The wall continued up another storey, above which a (mansard?) roof accommodated yet another storey for rooms labelled ‘offices’ on the cross-section. There were a lot of ‘offices’ over the auditorium; two storeys deep in places.
The cinema was behind the half-timbered gable-end to the left. The projection room was at the rear of the stalls. On hot summer evenings a door out to the pavement would be left open for ventilation, and one could see and hear the projectors. The rear wall behind the screen faced onto the bus station.
G J Mellor’s “Cinemas of Bradford” gives the cinema owners as Messrs Holmes, Pickles, Whiteside and Barnett; and the ballroom owner as Herbert Shutt. ‘Bert Shutt’, employed my father on the decorating of the ballroom.
The “Ideal” is almost opposite the end of Carbottom Road. The Rooley Lane junction is a distance away.
The 1966 BBC television play “Where the buffalo roam”, written by Dennis Potter and starring a young Hywel Bennett, featured a scene at the entrance to the Castle. Bennett’s young character was admiring and fantasising about cowboy films, stills of which were on display at the cinema.
I’ve uploaded images of the KYB entries for Otley for 1931, 1942, 1947 and 1954. 1942 lists both the Beech Hill and the Westgate cinema; and gives the latter as 580 seats. In 1947 and 1954 the Beech Hill is given as 686 and 679 seats, respectively. It’s odd.
Correction: the site is not the car park. That is beyond the flag and the tree. The cinema site is mostly behind a high board fence with young trees visible. The clue in the Google Streetview is the brick pillar and iron railings. They are still there; as is one of the red brick and white faïence corners of the cinema.
The KYB 1931 simply lists the name and Western Electric (WE) sound.
Rather than start another cinema, the KYB 1931 also lists, with no other information “Kings Hall”.
The KYB 1931 has it listed as the Burras Lane Cinema. So its demise was after 1931 and before 1934. The proprietor was given as A E Shields, 29 Kirkgate, Bradford.
It is listed as The Gaumont Picture House in the Kinematograph Year Book 1947, which gives the capacity as 1454 seats.
There seems to be only the one external photo of the Elysian. This is a slightly clearer version of the main one in this article.
The Kinematograph Year Book for 1954 gives the screen as 30ft6 by 18ft3; there were 1088 seats. The late Colin Sutton’s web site reports that cinemascope was installed “circa 1954”, which would account for a screen 2ft6 wider than the original proscenium. Interestingly, the 1947 and 1954 capacities are the same; so no seats were removed due to the larger screen.
1954 prices were 1/– to 2/–. (10d to 1/6 in 1947)
In the Kinematograph Year Book for 1947, the Myrtle had 900 seats. Prices ranged from 10d to 2/6; pricier than the Hippodrome which was charging 6d to 1/6 at the time. The KYE for 1954 gives the prices as 7d to 2/7; the Hippodrome was a branch of Woolworth’s by then. In 1954 the screen at the Myrtle was 16ft6 by 12ft6.
The Hippodrome is listed in the Kinematograph Year Book for 1914. It was owned by the Bingley Hippodrome Company. In the KYB for 1947 the capacity is 769 seats; and the same company was running it.
The Google maps pin point (above, right) is completely wrong (it’s pinned on Main Street in another community). The postcode BD16 2HZ is correct. Number 55 is a guess at the Main Street number. The site is now part of a car park next to estate agents at number 53. The Hippodrome was (probably) at the north end of the car park with the Water Works premises in the photo on the rest of the car park right next to the present estate agents.
The Google map pin point is wrong. It is on Station Road, it should be on Railway Road.
Follow the right hand side of the curve of Bingley Main Street and the Hippodrome can be seen as the last building. The site of the Myrtle cinema is back down the road, behind the camera, and also on the right hand side.
According to the Kinematograph Year Book for 1954 (the year of the photo above), seat prices ranged from 1/6 to 2/6. No seating capacity was given, though the KYB for 1947 quoted 1,080 seats.
The Morley Street entrance to the Bradford Picture House (taken in 1914). This entrance served the seats priced at one shilling and at six pence. Patrons for the cheap seats at three pence (thruppence/threppence) entered via the less well appointed entrance in Great Horton Road. Ironically, the latter is now the sole entrance to the Alhambra Studio Theatre; and the above is closed off.
House lights hung from four of the grilles. The first I recall were the Star Cinemas house-style of five-pointed stars in the horizontal cross-section. They were replaced around 1960 by drum fittings against the grilles, which gave a very stark light. I may be being misled, but the two small dimple shapes at the height of the ceiling curve are probably where two naked, clear light bulbs hung: the cleaning lights. Occasionally, someone would flick a wrong switch and their glare would hit the atmosphere.
Light through windows at the back shows how the seating extended to the very rear wall. There was a stepped seating area under the projection room. All those seats were doubles, very plushly upholstered. However, the occupants had the disruption of rear cross-aisle traffic interrupting the view of the screen. It occurs to me that, originally, the region under the projection room may have had a number of elevated family ‘boxes’ (the rear of the circle at the Torbay Cinema is an example); ripping those out at the 1933 refit would account from how an additional 37 seats were fitted in. It’s an idea!
The door that is partly hidden by the car opened onto steep metal stairs up to the projection suite which is located behind the three boarded windows. Notice the door doesn’t have the architectural finish of all other windows and doors in the building. The reason is very odd. That door was created in the early 1950s. Prior to that, the projection room stairs went down into the auditorium, meeting the cross-aisle that is served by the exit towards which the man is walking.
Beyond the car, the central shuttered door opened on to stairs down into a boiler/store room under the rear stalls.
The far shuttered door was a rear exit that started as a downward slope from the rear cross-aisle and ended in some very steep steps down to the pavement.
Behind that central panel, the two projectors were within a brick-built room. There was a corridor at the back with windows overlooking Ebenezer Place. The lone pair of port holes at the right were for a spotlight located in a room containing the gramophone and (I seem to recall) the rewind and film store facilities. The spotlight was replaced by lamps on the auditorium walls above where the usherettes stood, leaning back with the weight of a laden tray! In the late 1950s, whilst at junior school (Bell School on Southfield Lane) my dad arranged for me to be shown round by one of his friends who was a projectionist.
This is (almost) how I recall the façade from my childhood in the 1950s.
As shown, the building is a bingo hall and has a crudely made (and maintained) sign spoiling the entrance arch. The tile/slate roof has been made water-tight (cheaply) by covering it with roofing-felt/sheet. The brick lean-to was an early 1950s addition and is the gents toilets, accessible from the auditorium. The original gents was behind the two tall windows to the left of the entrance, accesible via the minute foyer. That room became a staff and storage space. At that time, the ladies toilets (windows to the right) was given a door into the auditorium. Presumably the changes were to stop traffic in/out of the auditorium.
The window to the right of the far, rear stalls, exit door was onto a corridor-like room/waiting area. There was a row of tip-up seats against the wall under the window. The internal wall facing the window carried cases for film posters. To enter the room from the foyer involved a step (or two) to be at the level of the rear stalls.
The manager’s office was in the corner beyond the exit, with a window in the angled corner of the building. I wonder what became of documents and photos kept in there. When cinemascope was installed, the manager displayed photos of the original proscenium and the new one; each with tabs open and closed.
The Google map location is slightly out. The cinema was located directly behind what is now W H Smith and Peter Jones stores on The Grove.
The façade isn’t stone. The walls behind the projection room and along the exposed auditorium flank are of red brick (unusual for 1914 Bradford) with white faïence details to door and window lintels, etc; the (now decapitated) entrance feature is white faïence, and the rear of the stage is of Bradford sandstone. I recall the roof originally being slate, but could be wrong.
The mid-1950s cinemascope screen was within a rectangular box proscenium erected in front of the (now exposed) classical proscenium. It extended between the two corners at which the wall steps back to form recesses for exits. The new tabs were pale bluey/green. Those in the original proscenium were, in early 1950s, red with three horizontal gold stripes towards the bottom. Later in the 50s the auditorium was redecorated and new ceiling lamps fitted (giving a rather stark light); and splayed boards were inserted between the side corners of the new proscenium and the side walls, with gaps beneath for access to the exits.
I, too, went to the Saturday 10 a.m. children’s matinee. It was not the packed rowdy house that the repeat was at 2 p.m. (Also, if money was available, I could then go to the 2 p.m. children’s matinee at The Grange further down Great Horton Road.)
Tragically, there is now a rectangular excrescence atop the vertical tower. It houses mobile phone aerials and has been coloured to blend in with the building. Morecambe has a gem, but bespoils it. Then, Morecambe is a very sad place these days.
Dennis Sharp’s “The Picture Palace” (1969) has cross-section, plans and a 1920s façade view on pages 92 & 93.
The ground plan was not rectangular; the side wall to the left of the screen stepped in by about 9 feet. This created a decidedly odd seating layout. Stalls seats had an aisle centred on the screen with 16-seat-wide blocks to left and right, but there was a third 6-seat-wide block on the far left. Because the seats were in straight rows, the sight lines from the extra block on the left must have been dire (the screen was about 20 feet to their right). This asymmetry was repeated in the two circles. However their stepped rows of seats were on curves arranged around the screen, so sight-lines would have been better.
Projection was from the back of the lower circle. The projection suite was behind the middle five of the lower line of square windows in the photo above (i.e. with triangular tops above them).
The central bottom set of windows (with curved tops) were to a foyer fitted under the projection suite and part of the rear of the first circle. The central top set of square windows were to a foyer under the rear of the upper circle, the middle portion of which went right back to the blank wall below the balustrade*.
There were a lot of stairs to climb in there; and a lot of full-height stairwells, plus three lifts. There was no depth to the stage. There was a basement (ballroom) and a sub-basement with ventilation plant etc.
The pilasters (see the photo) divide the facade into 5 bays. From left to right, at pavement level the bays were above: a pair of exit doors for stairs down the far corner of the building; a main entrance; two shop units (one narrow, one wide); a second main entrance; a narrow shop unit.
The cinema was behind the half-timbered gable-end to the left. The projection room was at the rear of the stalls. On hot summer evenings a door out to the pavement would be left open for ventilation, and one could see and hear the projectors. The rear wall behind the screen faced onto the bus station.
I don’t have a date for this photo, but the cinema must have been quite new at the time.