Pentridge Cinema
Holmes Street,
Burnley,
BB11 3BE
Holmes Street,
Burnley,
BB11 3BE
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing 3 comments
The building was demolished in April 2015. A student accommodation building will be on the site.
The reference to works done in 1912 and 1917 was taken from a Burnley Council document dated 2004. I now suspect this is incorrect.
What is definite is that the Pentridge reopened on Thursday 25 March 1920 having been extensively remodelled and enlarged (a balcony) and re-fronted to the designs of William Heap whose Imperial, a new build, had opened about 9 weeks earlier. The layout (balcony, projection room, orchestra gallery, etc) and style are very similar in both cinemas.
The Burnley News report of Saturday 27 March 1920 (see other photos) gave the new capacity as 384 in the ‘balcony’ and 833 in the ‘pit’: total 1217. A number of rear ‘pit’ seats had poor sight-lines because of balcony-support columns.
The Pentridge cinema building became the EMBASSY CLUB in the early 1960s with gaming tables (roulette, blackjack, etc) and live entertainment (‘blue'comedians and strippers). It was operated by a Norman Smith who also ran the Black Knight Club at Waterfoot in Rossendale.
Many cinemas went down the gaming/adult-entertainment route in the early 1960s, becoming Embassies and Fiestas, but their businesses were adversely affected by the Gaming Act 1968 which ended the more laissez-faire gambling regime.