See better days and do better things* …. the Wellington Picture House .... traveling through Stockport

I will have passed the Wellington Picture House countless times and given it little thought other than “that’s another old cinema fallen on hard times”.

For those that don’t know it’s located on the corner of Wellington Road and Higher Hillgate, and stands as a testimony to the rise and demise of the cinema.

My cinema TREASURES, tells me that it opened on July 11th 1921 with “Only a Mill Girl”, and in addition to the cinema auditorium contained a 13 table billiard hall and café.

Its history mirrors so many picture houses, having started out as an independent, later taken over by a chain and after closure in the 1960s, reopened first as a Bingo Hall and later a snooker hall, before closing in 2012 and now lingers on in a faded and peeling existence waiting for something to happen.**

There is more to the story but for that you will have to read Ken Rose’s piece by following the link.

The BFI says of "Only a Mill Girl" made in 1919, that it was “a screen adaptation of a popular provincial play about mill-foreman's daughter, loved by employer's son and in love with an employee-inventor”. ***

And of the three listed actors, Harry Foxwell Betty Farquhar and Andy Condy, I can find very little.  

Ms Farquhar appeared in five films from 1919 to 1924, Mr. Foxhall two and Andy Condy just "Only a Mill Girl".

Interestingly it is not one of the Stockport cinemas listed in the 1928 Kinematograph  Year Book, but I have others so will trawl them to see if I can solve the little mystery.

So that is about it.

Location; Stockport

Picture; the Wellington Picture House, 2023, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Free, The Frewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963

**Wellington Picture House, Ken Roe, cinema TREASURES, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/36714

*** Only a Mill Girl, 1919, BFI, https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b750dc4d9