The aim of the Going to the Pictures Project has been to help preserve a part of our local cinema heritage by collecting and recording memories from people who used and worked in the local picture houses from the 1930′s to the 1960′s.
Explore this map of 21 local cinemas within a 3 mile radius of the Plaza, from 1930 to 1960.
As part of the project volunteers were given the opportunity to attend a Website Workshop in which they learnt skills on how to upload text and visual content to this website.
Pay day pocket money in hand and off to the pictures, and to the ‘chippy’ for 3 penneth of chips – what joy, blown the rest of that week’s pocket money. My friends and I loved the cinema, oh what Happy Days.
The Regal was built as a purpose built cinema and opened 1939. With a white frontage, the sail shape building was a very popular venue especially with courting couples who remember the double ‘Love Seats’
Films came to the cinema on large reels which would be projected onto the screen, the reels would sometimes break and get mixed up
Showtime was first published in 1964 by the Rank Organisation as a competitor to ABC’s Film Review, it had similar content but ceased publication by the late 1960′s.
This image shows the interior of the old Palladium Cinema in Seaforth. The ornate decorative features have lasted for almost a century within this building which has had many uses including the cinema, a warehouse […]
“The Essoldo (ice box) on Linacre road (opposite the corpy bus shed) When the Hammer (Dracula) pictures was on us Marsh Lane bucks never missed one of them . There was 4 or 5 of […]
Volunteers through the project were treated to a tour of The North West Film Archive in Manchester where they learnt about how the archive plays a key part in preserving our local and regional film heritage.