Looking for pictures of Didbury’s oldest cinema

The cinema on Elm Grove was Didsbury’s oldest picture house and it saw out all its rivals.

The Tudor in 1959

In its time it had many names from the Didsbury Picture House, and the Didsbury Theatre through to the Tudor which it adopted in 1951 and retained till its closure in 1967.

And there will be many in Didsbury who will remember it as the Tudor and may even recall that they were there on the last night on August 12 when it showed Julie Christie in Fahrenheit 451.

By then it had outlived the bigger and more showy Capitol on School Lane which had opened in 1931 with a blaze of publicity as the Union and was partially destroyed by a fire the following year, reopening in 1933.*

Advert 1914

The Tudor was always the smaller neighbour.

It was open for business by 1913 when it was called the Bijou Electric Theatre, seating 350 and run by H Merryweather.**

Looking at the picture from 1959 it may be that the cinema went through either an extension or rebuild.

And that just leaves me to make an appeal for pictures if the Tudor cinema or better still when it was the Bijou.

Location Didsbury

Picture; Elm Grove, 1959, J F Harris, m2333, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and advert, from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914

*The Golden Years of Manchester Picture Houses Derek J Southall, 2010

** The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory 1914

At the Aaben in Hulme .......... with heaps of interesting movies

 I have fond memories of the Aaben Cinema in Hulme.

Although I have to say my time there was pretty much limited to the late 1970s.

By the mid 1980s the kids were coming along and trips out were pretty much limited to the pub and the odd theatre trip.

But back in the day it was a grand place to go where you could see films you had missed first time around and a whole clutch of interesting movies which would never make it on to the main circuits as well as heaps of “arts” productions from around the world.

A full 45 years on and I am hard pressed to remember what I saw although I have memories of accompanying Jenn and Tricia to silly, bizarre, and earnest films.

The history of the place is equally interesting, and for its story I fell back on cinema TREASURES which is a cornucopia of accounts about our lost picture houses.

And the entry on the Aaben has the added authenticity that it was co written by John Wojowski who ran it in the 1980s until 1990.  He writes it was “opened in 1928 as the York Cinema, it was located on York Street, Hulme, an inner-city district of Manchester. 

Seating was provided for 1,414 and in 1937 the operators were given as Thomas and Norman Royle, who operated it into the late-1940’s. By 1954 it was operated by York Cinema (Manchester) Ltd. and the seating capacity was given as 1,300.

In 1967 it was closed and converted into a bingo club, but this was short lived as in 1969 it was taken over by the Unit Four Cinemas Ltd. of Burnley who made one of their first conversions of a former single screen cinema here, when they converted the building into four screens, re-opening as the Unit 4 Cinemas. 

Seating capacities in the screens were 210, 101, 102 and 102. There was a bar and a snack bar for patrons. It was a 4-screen independent arts cinema from the mid-1970’s through to when it closed finally in 1991”.*

Now never one to steal other people’s research, I won’t quote anymore but instead direct you to Mr. Wojowski’s account by following the link.

In its way the cinema walks with the history of Hulme, having offered entertainment when Hulme was still a densely packed area of terraced housing and closing as the clearances swept away the original housing and its population.

Only to reopen as an “arts” cinema in the mid-1970s catering for a mix of students and young professionals who had begun to make Hulme their home.

The programme dates from 1988 and is a bit of a mystery given that by then I was no longer a patron, but maybe I picked it up somewhere with the vague intention of popping along, and as so often happens it went from the coffee table to a cupboard before being filed as a future bit of history, which of course it now is.

Location; Hulme

Pictures, Aaben Cinetheque, February/March ’88, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Aaben Cinema, Jackson Crescent, Manchester M15, John Wojowski, & Ken Roe,  cinema TREASURES, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/22901

Its official ..... there will be no more choc ices and Carry on films in Withington

Wilmslow Road, 1930

There will be many, many people who remember the Scala in Withington with fond memories.

I know I do, although like many I gave up on it a long time ago and felt a mix of guilt and regret when it finally closed in 2001.

It began as the Scala Electric Palace had 500 seats and was owned by the Scala Electric Palace (Withington), Ltd and ended its day as Cine City.

In a more simpler age it was what stood for entertainment in the suburbs, but the steady advance of the television followed by the multiplex cinema did it for the Scala

I had all but forgotten the place, but then Andy Robertson decided today to slip down and look at what had become a hole in the ground and was recorded the new development.

Wilmslow Road, 2017

Look closely at the wooden fence and there is an artist’s picture of the completed building.

And not content with one scene of dereliction turned new development he came on the remains of wall directly opposite which he tells me is the “land vacated by a cafe/restaurant which always seemed to me to be a temporary add-on which became semi-permanent if that makes sense.”

Which it does, more so because I can vaguely remember having a meal there possibly back in the early 1990s.

All that is left of that cafe/restaurant

Sadly that is the extent of my memory, but there will be someone with chapter and verse, who no doubt can also fill us all in with the details of the Scala.

Well we shall see, but I hope so.

Location; Withington,








Pictures; Wilmlow Road, 1930, m41845, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,  http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and the cinema site today and the land opposite, 2017 from the collection of Andy Robertson

Andy's new hole in the ground

*The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory, 1914, page 347