Take a modern image of a building we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.
It was a bit of fun from Peter which has become the series Posters of the Past.*
And today it is the turn of the Grosvenor which was opened in 1915 to a design by Percy Hothersall and with almost a thousand seats was I think the biggest cinema outside the city centre at the time.
Even now long after its days as a place to see films have ceased it is still a pretty impressive building.
Its green and cream terracotta tiles marked it out on that stretch of Oxford Road which apart from the Town Hall opposite and the old offices of the Poor Law Union on the corner of Cavendish Street was a drab spot.
And I just missed going there.
It closed as a cinema in 1968 and I had to be content with using it as a pub which it had become after unsuccessful stints as a bingo hall and snooker venue.
Still some of the original features still exist including the balcony, vaulted ceiling and much plasterwork although they have not been treated well.
I guess the cinema entrepreneur, H.D. Moorhouse would be less than amused. Pretty much all his working life was given over to picture houses and the films, having started as an accountant he got drawn in with a parts share on one and later a string of cinemas, across the city.
And now his cinema is a pub.
So instead let’s slide back to a time when the price of admission to a night of dreams, fears and adventure was just 6d.
I think it would have to be the 1930s with that wonderful film Things to Come. Of course yours will be different but as they say “you can be at my film night if I can be in yours.
Poster; The Grosvenor, © 2016 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
*Posters from the Past https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past
And today it is the turn of the Grosvenor which was opened in 1915 to a design by Percy Hothersall and with almost a thousand seats was I think the biggest cinema outside the city centre at the time.
Even now long after its days as a place to see films have ceased it is still a pretty impressive building.
Its green and cream terracotta tiles marked it out on that stretch of Oxford Road which apart from the Town Hall opposite and the old offices of the Poor Law Union on the corner of Cavendish Street was a drab spot.
And I just missed going there.
It closed as a cinema in 1968 and I had to be content with using it as a pub which it had become after unsuccessful stints as a bingo hall and snooker venue.
Still some of the original features still exist including the balcony, vaulted ceiling and much plasterwork although they have not been treated well.
I guess the cinema entrepreneur, H.D. Moorhouse would be less than amused. Pretty much all his working life was given over to picture houses and the films, having started as an accountant he got drawn in with a parts share on one and later a string of cinemas, across the city.
And now his cinema is a pub.
So instead let’s slide back to a time when the price of admission to a night of dreams, fears and adventure was just 6d.
I think it would have to be the 1930s with that wonderful film Things to Come. Of course yours will be different but as they say “you can be at my film night if I can be in yours.
Poster; The Grosvenor, © 2016 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures
*Posters from the Past https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past
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