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John
Gould Irwin & Francis Chester
The Theatre Royal, Peter Street - 1845 Interior
altered
in 1875 by Edward Salomons
The Theatres Trust web site has this to say about the Theatre Royal, "The Theatre Royal is Manchester’s oldest surviving theatre, though now in use as a night club. Built in 1845 on an island site, it is an impressive building in Classical style; the giant recessed portico with fluted Corinthian columns in antis seems to dominate Peter Street even today. The monumental façe is one of the finest examples of theatre architecture to have survived in Britain from the first half of the nineteenth century. It is symmetrical, stuccoed, in three unequal bays with three storeys and an attic. The modillioned cornice is treated as a parapet, and gabled in the centre. The portico contains three steps to three altered doorways, with a pedimented aedicule in the centre with a Carrara marble statue of Shakespeare leaning on a pedestal. The entablature bears a frieze inscribed ‘Theatre Royal Erected 1845’." It was converted to a cinema in 1921, into a bingo hall in 1972 and in 1990 to a nightclub.    |