The former Regent Picture House

The former Regent Picture House

This cinema was built in 1921 by the architects Lumb and Walton. The contractors were Messrs. Chadwick Bros of Layton, with Messrs. J. Fielding and Sons undertaking the reinforced concrete work. Messrs. Claughton of Leeds supplied the furnishings. The building is designed in Neo-Baroque style with Neo-Grec detailing.

The structure is of reinforced concrete with red brick walls faced in white-glazed terracotta tiles supplied by the Middleton Fireclay Company. The building occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Church Street and Nelson Street, with a roughly rectangular plan and a canted corner entrance. A ticket office and vestibule provide entry to both the stalls and a staircase leading to the balcony.

The three-storey elevation is clad in white-glazed terracotta tile—the ground floor has since been overpainted in cream—with Greek detailing and a full entablature. Windows to the upper levels retain original fenestration with lozenge-shaped glazing bars. A wide fascia runs above the ground floors of the Regent Street elevation, the canted bay, and part of the Church Street elevation; a historic photograph shows a canopy formerly attached to this, now removed. The roof is flat.

The Church Street elevation comprises four bays and two storeys. The ground floor contains a projecting canted bay window (now boarded) and a square projection with recessed panels and corner floral motifs in its centre bay, which holds a blocked window or door. Alternating with the projecting bays are blind bays bearing recessed squares with projecting sills and apron panels with lozenge motifs below. The full-height upper storey features a tall canted bay window to the left with narrow lights to its sides. The remaining first-floor windows on this elevation, lighting the balcony stair, are set within tall recessed panels with projecting cornices, surrounds, and sills, decorated with smaller square and rectangular panels. The third window is formed as a portico, framed by a pair of Ionic columns set upon the ground floor projection, which carry a projecting segment of the continuous entablature. Above this, the elevation carries a partially balustraded parapet with a raised and thickened central section.

The canted entrance bay features marble thresholds and three sets of original double doors framed by Doric columns and pilasters carrying the continuous entablature. Above this is a five-sided element pierced by three windows, each set within recessed panels similar to those on the Church Street elevation, with the continuous entablature above. Rising further is an octagonal tower with narrow, rectangular window openings featuring boss-decorated architraves, cornices, and projecting sills and aprons. This is surmounted by a domed roof of eight ornate decorative panels.

The Regent Street elevation forms the west wall of the auditorium and comprises seven bays to the ground floor, of which three project as blind features except for the right end bay, which houses a stalls fire door. Historic photographs show the ground floor of this elevation once carried numerous cinema advertisements. The upper parts are blind, comprising three bays with the centre bay projecting and the outer two bays decorated with square motifs with raised surrounds and cross decoration. This elevation is completed by a substantial entablature with a moulded cornice and a partially balustraded parapet.

The rear elevation is largely obscured but contains a number of plain door openings with stone lintels and, at each end, a balcony fire exit.

Internally, the main entrance opens into an octagonal ticket office, which is understood to retain its original marble floor beneath the present carpet. The plaster domed roof features decoration including scrolled and Greek key motifs, preserved in what is considered the original interior colour scheme of Wedgewood blue and cream. The original entrance to the stalls has lost its double mahogany doors, but to the left is the original dog-leg marble staircase to the balcony, lit by stair windows with original fenestration.

The auditorium largely retains original plaster panels with simple borders and corner bosses throughout all walls, and a broad, ornate plaster cove serving as a continuous flue for the ventilation system. The ceiling is divided into panels by large structural concrete beams with applied scrolled decoration and several undecorated cross beams. At the centre is a large rectangular panel with decorative square plaster motifs, which contains the manual sliding roof originally glazed in glass panels, now replaced with wooden sheets. Some of this plasterwork has suffered damage from water ingress. The blind external canted bays of the auditorium are expressed in the interior. The proscenium with pilasters remains in place, its upper part decorated with bosses and dentils; above this is a lower cove with a large central rectangular panel depicting a parade of Greek soldiers on horseback. The original orchestra pit is understood to remain beneath the later floor immediately to the front. The underside of the balcony features plaster panels set between the structural concrete fins that support it. All stalls seating has been removed and the present floor is an early 21st-century addition; the original horse-shoe rake is retained beneath.

The balcony retains decorative plaster with lattice and palmette decoration. A small area of balcony seating is retained to the front left, probably dating from the 1950s, and within a smaller private secondary balcony to the rear right; the raked floor remains throughout. To the rear right there is an original refreshment kiosk, and at each balcony end an original fire exit and small WC.

A door at the rear of the balcony gives access to a cast iron staircase leading directly to the projector and lighting rooms and a small store room. Within the projector room there is ladder access to the roof of the cinema. The manual sliding roof is encased within a concrete structure with several rectangular ventilation openings and retains metal fixings to facilitate opening.