Old Theatre

NORTHALLERTON HIGH STREET SE 3693-3793 (west side, off) 7/40 Old Theatre GV II Theatre, now health spa. c1800 with later alterations. For Butler, Jefferson and Co. Orange-red-brown brick in English garden wall bond, pantile roof. 2 storeys, formerly with a cellar; 4 internal bays. West side: two first-floor 24-pane fixed- light windows with inserted doorway on right and 2 inserted C20 windows on each floor to left. Dentil eaves. Shaped kneelers, ashlar coping. Later additions mask much of the east side, which was probably the front, with access from the High Street. Northallerton was on the same provincial theatre circuit as Richmond, where the theatre Royal, built by Samuel Butler in 1788, has almost identical dimensions. The Northallerton theatre almost certainly had the same internal arrangements, of the stage occupying almost half the volume, and the auditorium having pit, boxes and gallery, all served by a single entrance with pay-box. The theatre was discontinued in 1832, and was re-opened as a Primitive Methodist Chapel in 1834. This continued until a new chapel, off the east side of the High Street, opened in 1889. Rev J L Saywell, The History and Annals of Northallerton (1885), pp 143, XV; VCH i, p 420.

Listing NGR: SE3681293830