Picture Houses
- Picture Houses - 

I was, of course, of that generation that at one point didn't have a TV.  Evenings were spent around the radio or at the pictures with my Dad, and we saw every cowboy and war film that they made in the 50's. In addition, I often went to the Minor's Club at the Apollo on Saturday mornings and the matinée at the Kings on Saturday afternoon watching Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid and various Science Fiction Soap Operas.

Today there are no cinemas in Longsight.  However, in my day there were three.  The Kings and The Shaftesbury sat across from each other on Stockport Road, close to Stanley Grove.
1. The Kings
2. The Shaftesbury

The photograph below shows the Shaftesbury cinema (It is displayed here with the permission of the Manchester Archives and Local Studies Department)

Shaftsbury © Keith Taylor
The photograph below shows the site once occupied by the Shaftesbury, which is now home to the Longsight Medical Centre.


What I knew as the Kings Picture House started out life as The Kings Opera House.  It opened in 1904 and operated as a live theater for 29 years. During that period it was home to both live drama and vaudeville. Below is a copy of a programme from 1932.








It was then converted into a cinema and operated in that role from 1933 until 1964. After closing, it had a brief period as a club before finally being demolished in 1973.
 Kings Opera House © Graham Todd

The postcard images above and below were donated by Graham Todd

Below is the site of the Kings today.



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Further down Stockport Road, at the point where Slade Lane branched off to the right, sat the Queens.  It occupied a site on the east side of the road, next to Gore Brook, which sort of flowed by. Generally the water was so polluted that it wasn't that easy to detect flow. Behind the Queens ran the main Manchester to London rail line which at that point was beginning to approach Longsight station. Many a magic moment was punctuated by a train trundling by. I remember going there to see the Ten Commandments and having to go ahead of time to line up to make a booking, very posh.


The site is much changed today.  The photograph below shows the buildings that have replaced the Queens and the Crown pub (later called the Céilidh) that used to sit next door.



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However, this isn't the end of the story.  In the book " Longsight Past and Present" by Gay Sussex, the author claims that, " ... the area used to have four cinemas.  There was a 'picture palace' in Hamilton Road, opposite the Co-op. Print Works ... "  This certainly appears to be the case because the 1922 OS map of the area shows a "Picture Theatre" just where the author said it was.  (The map below is my version of that map with the reference information for the original)


The Picture Theatre wasn't there in 1908 and it was gone by the time the 1933 map was published.



By 1933 the site was occupied by the Valpercy garment factory.  The site of the theatre had become a parking area for the factory and that is still the case in 2014.



What Gay Sussex's book didn't point out though is that there was a fifth picture house.  This is possibly the oldest of the five.  It was located at the opposite end of the block from Longsight Hall (Public Hall on the map below) on Stockport Road.  Once again the 1908 map doesn't identify the building on that site as a theatre in fact it doesn't identify its function in any way.  By 1922 though it is clearly marked as a "Picture Theatre".



The aerial photograph below was taken in the 1940s.  The building marked on the map above as a "Picture House" can be seen marked number 4.  Number 2 is the Longsight Public Hall, Number 3 is the Ducie Arms and Number 1 is the Ivy Chapel.


The Slaters Directory for Manchester and Salford, dated 1911, has an entry (as you can see below left) for the "Longsight Picture Palace Co, 504 Stockport Road L.  So it would seem that it was operating by at least 1911.  However, it didn't last too long because, as the document on the right below indicates, the company that owned it was wound up in 1920.  By the time the 1933 map was published the building on that site was listed as a corset factory.