Jump to content

The Tinsley Picture Palace


Guest tsavo

Recommended Posts

This cinema opened in November of 1912. At this time, Tinsley was still within the Rotherham boundary.

The auditorium seated around 800 people and in 1924 had a small orchestra retained until the introduction of talkies in 1930.

It closed in February, 1958.

Link to Picture Sheffield photo: http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/pi...ff.refno=s08077

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest tsavo

The Tinsley Picture Palace, Sheffield Road. - www.picturesheffield.com

The Palace was opened in November of 1912, at a time when Tinsley was still within the Rotherham town boundary. Seating was around 600, with at least some of it being on benches. In 1919 it was taken over by The Wincobank Picture Palace Company and within a year had been extensively remodeled. These alterations included changes to the frontage which was originally only to single storey level and an extra 150 seats were added to the capacity. In August of 1922 there was a fire in the projection room though this was quickly brought under control.** Until 1924 the cinema relied on a pianist for it's musical accompaniments but a trio was engaged and in 1926 a small orchestra was introduced. John Madin was a pianist for a time, before moving to the Heeley Palace as organist.

Sound came to the Palace in April of 1930 with the introduction of a Western Electric sound system. Probably the Palace's only claim to fame was that it was the first cinema in Yorkshire to switch to the more powerful alternating current arc lamps.

From 1930 the Tinsley Palace and the Wincobank Palace were run as separate enterprises, although continuing to be under the control of the Wadsworth family.

In 1950 the hall was closed for several weeks for various repairs to be made, at a time when suburban cinemas were finding it increasingly difficult to break even financially and rowdyism was also becaming a problem.

The introduction of CinemaScope, the first presentation being The Robe* in 1955 brought back the audiences for a while, though with hindsight, the writing was on the wall. Having never opened on Sunday's. the cinema closed in February of 1958 without the then common excursion into bingo.

It's sister cinema, the Wincobank Palace, lasted just 12 months longer.

* Review of The Robe from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046247/

** These were not uncommon occurrences as the film used was of highly inflammable cellulose nitrate stock, which exploded, rather than burned.

Info: Sheffield Cinemas / Tsavo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...