Cinema

Broadbottom is a village in Thameside, Greater Manchester, situated to the north-east of Stockport.

For an unspecified period, during the silent era, the village had its own cinema - and, remarkably, the building survives!

The details come from an article, in the North Cheshire Herald, held in the Cinema Theatre Association Archive. Dated 2nd April 1976, this looked back at the history of this village, and included a photograph of the building that used to be home to the (unnamed) Cinema.

The article is a lengthy one, but only mentions the cinema very briefly, saying that the building was used as a ballroom before becoming “a gas-lit cinema”. Locals seemed to recall silent Western hero ‘Bronco Billy’ most of all, though they also recalled the film appearing ‘the wrong way round’ due to projectionist error! A café opposite the cinema offered fish and chip suppers to round off the evenings!

I need hardly add that this Cinema did not make it into the Kinematograph Year Books, so it can only be assumed it closed at the end of the silent era, at the least.

But the building remains, and has been converted into housing. (However, it does appear to be quite small, even for a modest ballroom/cinema, so perhaps the rear has been truncated over the years.)

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