Empire Cinema

Located in Batley, West Yorkshire. The Theatre Royal opened on 2nd November 1896. It was designed by architect William Smelt and had 3,000 seats in pit, stalls, dress circle and boxes, and was built for Fred Cooke. Alterations were carried out around 1907 to the plans of architect A.J. Whitty. In February 1912 it was re-named Batley Hippodrome Theatre.

In 1921 the building was gutted back to the bare walls and the façade was rebuilt. This was done to the plans of architectural firm Hanstock & Sons who created a modern cinema with 712 seats in the stalls and 268 seats in the circle. It re-opened as the Empire Super Cinema on 2nd January 1922. There was still a stage, and the proscenium was 22 feet wide. The Empire Cinema was the first in town to be equipped to show ‘talkies, when a Western Electric(WE) sound system was installed and on the 20th October 1929 “Showboat” was the first sound film to be screened.

The Empire Cinema was equipped with CinemaScope in 1954/1955, with a new wide screen was installed forward from the original proscenium. It was closed on 26th August 1961 with Richard Todd in “Don’t Bother to Knock”.

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