Former Grosvenor Picture Palace

SJ 8497, 698-1/20/597,

MANCHESTER, GROSVENOR STREET (South side), Chorlton-On-Medlock, Former Grosvenor Picture Palace

03/10/74

GV

II

Cinema, now snooker club. 1912, altered. Green and white faience tiles, slate roof. Rectangular plan on corner site, with chamfered corner. Two storeys plus corner pavilion and small attic, with facades of four bays to Grosvenor Street and six bays to Oxford Road, hinged on a wide 3-bay canted corner surmounted by the pavilion. Ground floor of channelled green tiling, protected by an added flat metal and glass canopy suspended on metal ties; green Ionic pilasters to the Oxford Road facade, channelled green pilasters to the corner, white pilasters to Grosvenor Street, with a green frieze and cornice to all; white parapet with 4-bay attic to Grosvenor Street, upstands over centre and right-hand end of Oxford Street facade. The corner has a 3-bay entrance with Ionic columns distyle in antis (but now crossed by the canopy), at first floor a large panel in the centre with raised lettering "THE GROSVENOR PICTURE PALACE" and swagged roundels in the flanking bays; and a 3-bay open-fronted pavilion with coupled Ionic columns, geometrical metal railings, cornice, balustraded parapet and domed roof. The Oxford Road facade has panels with green aprons and keyed oculi, but the Grosvenor Street facade is less regular. Interior: glazed tiling and geometrical banding to the stairs (etc); auditorium altered by insertion of suspended ceiling, but most of original decoration survives, including gallery with moulded cartouches, swags, raised panels, etc. History: said to be the largest cinema outside London at that date.

Listing NGR: SJ8438597067