Hippodrome Theatre

terry on December 14, 2008 at 10:43 am

The Hippodrome had been a Blacks' theatre at one time, but for most of its life it was owned and operated by the Middlesbrough based Thompsons Enterprises (aka North of England Cinemas)and this was the Company who operated it when it closed in late Summer 1962 with the Shildon Amateur Operatic Society stage production of ‘The Desert Song’

It was a very large building (stadium plan) for the size of the town and whilst it could not be described as elaborate, it had a big cinema feel to it and the cinemascope screen was impressive. I saw ‘King of Kings’ (Jeffrey Hunter) and ‘The Young Ones’ (Cliff Richard) there, amongst others. I also remember well its fancy ‘house tabs’ which had theatrical style satin stripes at the foot of them and the projectionists had a habit of showing the BBFC Certificate (a practice frowned upon by the BBFC) onto them!

My sister’s father-in-law ( a well known citizen of the town who owned the main joinery business and was also the Master of the Town Band)lived close to the Hippodrome and he could not resist having a peek inside the building as the demolition team moved in in 1996.

Surprisingly, for its vintage it was steel framed and the demolition squad said that the building was so well constructed that it would have stood for another 100 years even in its neglected condition.

What a great pity that Shildon Council did not save the place for use as a multi purpose auditorium………they also flattened the Essoldo which was originally a Mechanics' Institute built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, no less! What is Shildon’s pride and joy these days? Locomotion, part of The National Railway Museum. In Timothy Hackworth’s house (Hackworth was a contemporary of George Stephenson)there is a section devoted to the town’s cinemas including huge photos of the Hippodrome which was showing ‘A Kind of Loving’ at the time.