Cottage Road Cinema
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Cottage Road Cinema is the oldest remaining cinema in continuous use in
Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
,
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Situated in the suburb of
Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...
, Cottage Road was originally built in 1905 as a
garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...
for the nearby Castle Grove mansion. Local
newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...
cameraman A camera operator, or depending on the context cameraman or camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film camera or video camera as part of a film crew. The term "cameraman" does not imply that a male is performing the task. In filmmakin ...
Owen Brooks leased the garage with his friend George Reginald 'Reg' Smith and the two converted the building into a cinema, which opened as 'Headingley Picture House' on Monday, 29 July 1912. The cinema changed hands in the late 1930s, ultimately being purchased by Associated Tower Cinemas, who changed its name to Cottage Road Cinema and undertook building work. Associated Tower invested £20,000 to modernise the cinema in 1972, but announced that Cottage Road would close on 28 July 2005, due to unsustainable financial losses. The cinema was saved by a last minute bid from Charles Morris's Northern Morris Group. Under Northern Morris's ownership, Cottage Road celebrated its 100th birthday on 29 July 2012, with a
Leeds Civic Trust Leeds Civic Trust is a voluntary organisation and registered charity established in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1965. Affiliated to the national charity Civic Voice, its stated purpose is "to stimulate public interest in and care for the ...
blue plaque being unveiled by screenwriter
Kay Mellor The name Kay is found both as a surname (see Kay (surname)) and as a given name. In English-speaking countries, it is usually a feminine name, often a short form of Katherine or one of its variants; but it is also used as a first name in its own r ...
. Aiming to provide "cinema-going as it used to be", Cottage Road shows a mix of family-friendly films alongside classic movies, with ice creams being sold in the auditorium during the interval before films begin, and the
national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...
being played at the end of each evening.


History

Cottage Road Cinema was originally built in 1905 (on the site of a former stable block) as a
garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...
for H.R. Kirk, a Leeds textile merchant and owner of the nearby Castle Grove mansion. Pioneering Leeds-born
newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...
cameraman A camera operator, or depending on the context cameraman or camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film camera or video camera as part of a film crew. The term "cameraman" does not imply that a male is performing the task. In filmmakin ...
Owen Brooks rented the garage several years later and, in partnership with his friend and fellow
motoring Motoring may refer to: * ''Motoring'' (film), a 1927 British comedy film * Motoring (TV series), a Canadian automotive television program (1988 to present) * 310 Motoring, an automotive customization garage based in Los Angeles, California * Mot ...
enthusiast George Reginald 'Reg' Smith, converted it into a cinema. This 590-seat cinema opened as 'Headingley Picture House' on Monday, 29 July 1912, with tickets costing sixpence, or one shilling for reserved seating. Smith died in 1922, after which Brooks and Smith's widow, along with a new partner, bought the freehold of the property from the Kirk family. Two years later Brooks left the business and, following a one-week closure in 1931 to install sound equipment at the end of the
silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...
era, Headingley Picture House was purchased in 1937 by entrepreneur Frank T. Thompson. The cinema changed hands again the following year, with Associated Tower Cinemas taking over ownership and renaming it 'Cottage Road Cinema'. Associated Tower added a balcony to the auditorium and, around this time, the building was also re-fronted. Cottage Road continued to show films through the '
talkies A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...
' boom of the 1930s and 40s and the advent of
colour Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...
until a major renovation in 1972, when £20,000 was spent modernising the cinema. The cinema re-opened on Boxing Day 1972 with a screening of '' Diamonds Are Forever''. Further improvements were made in 1982 when
Cinemeccanica Cinemeccanica is a motion picture equipment company specializing in cinema projectors. The company was formed in 1920 in Milan, Italy. Currently they have two film projectors available, the Victoria 5 (introduced in 1975) and the Victoria 8 ...
Victoria 8
projectors A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer types ...
, taken from the Grove cinema in Smethwick, were installed. By 2005 Cottage Road's fortunes had waned and Associated Tower, who disposed of Headingley's other historic cinema, The Lounge, in January of that year, announced that the venue would close on 28 July, one day shy of its 93rd birthday. In statements to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, Associated Tower variously claimed that the cinema was losing £100,000 a year and between £1,000 and £2,000 a month due to "competition from multiplexes" and that it was no longer viable as a business. Despite protests from local residents, staff were issued with redundancy notices and Cottage Road was set to close its doors as planned until a last minute buyout was agreed with Charles Morris's Northern Morris Group, who paid a “nominal fee” to secure an initial nine-year lease. Morris claimed that he "couldn't resist" attempting to save the cinema given that it had "survived when so many other cinemas had succumbed to bingo halls and supermarkets due to competition from television, video and other entertainment", but warned that the local community would need to attend showings regularly to ensure Cottage Road's continued survival. Cottage Road regained its alcohol licence under Northern Morris ownership and, a year on from its acquisition, Charles Morris told the ''
Yorkshire Evening Post The ''Yorkshire Evening Post'' is a daily evening publication (delivered to newsagents every morning) published by Yorkshire Post Newspapers in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The paper provides a regional slant on the day's news, and traditi ...
'' that he was happy with sales at the cinema, stating that "it's doing particularly well really as it's been a bad year for cinemas generally" and pointing to a sold-out showing of the 2006
James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
film '' Casino Royale'' as a highlight. In 2008 the cinema received a National Lottery grant from the
UK Film Council The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...
for roof repairs and, on 29 July 2012, a
Leeds Civic Trust Leeds Civic Trust is a voluntary organisation and registered charity established in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1965. Affiliated to the national charity Civic Voice, its stated purpose is "to stimulate public interest in and care for the ...
blue plaque was unveiled by Leeds-born screenwriter
Kay Mellor The name Kay is found both as a surname (see Kay (surname)) and as a given name. In English-speaking countries, it is usually a feminine name, often a short form of Katherine or one of its variants; but it is also used as a first name in its own r ...
to commemorate its 100th anniversary. Local poet Linda Marshall gave a special tribute entitled "Havoc In Far Headingley" after the plaque was unveiled, before the 1957 comedy ''
The Smallest Show on Earth ''The Smallest Show on Earth'' (US: ''Big Time Operators'') is a 1957 British comedy film, directed by Basil Dearden, and starring Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford. The supporting cast includes Bernard M ...
'' was shown. 100th birthday celebrations continued with more classic films, including a screening of '' Singin' in the Rain'' introduced by
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
MP Gerald Kaufman, and culminated with a silent film showing with live musical accompaniment, in conjunction with the
Leeds International Film Festival The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) is the largest film festival in England outside London. Founded in 1987, it is held in November at various venues throughout Leeds, West Yorkshire. In 2015, the festival welcomed over 40,000 visitor ...
.
Leeds North West Leeds North West is a constituency in the City of Leeds which has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Alex Sobel, of Labour Co-op. Boundaries 1950–1955: The County Borough of Leeds wards of Far He ...
MP
Greg Mulholland Gregory Thomas Mulholland (born 31 August 1970) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom who was the MP for Leeds North West. He was first elected at the 2005 general election, winning the seat from Labour and was re-elected wi ...
tabled an
early day motion In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by members of Parliament that formally calls for debate "on an early day". In practice, they are rarely debated in the House a ...
in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
, calling on his fellow politicians to congratulate "Leeds' oldest cinema in continuous use ..as it celebrates the centenary of its founding" along with Charles Morris and the Northern Morris Group for their role in saving Cottage Road and "similar historic cinemas up and down the country". The
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
caused the cinema to close for seven months in 2020, before it reopened on 23 October with a showing of '' Breakfast at Tiffany’s''.


Present day

Although it has digital projectors and Dolby Surround 7.1 sound, Cottage Road retains its wood-panelled lobby and aims to provide "cinema-going as it used to be". Ice creams are sold in the auditorium during the interval before films begin, and the
national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...
is played at the end of each evening. Every six weeks, the cinema hosts 'Classics at the Cottage' events, where classic movies, often introduced by owner Charles Morris, are shown. Cottage Road's regular programme includes films that appeal to young children and families — according to Morris "''
Nightmare on Elm Street ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' is a 1984 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Robert Shaye. It is the first installment in the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' franchise and stars Heather Langenk ...
'' isn't for Cottage Road. We're lucky to have very loyal and appreciative audiences, and we try to give them what they want". Cottage Road has 466 seats, and cinemagoers can choose between regular stalls seating or larger and more comfortable 'Pullman seats', situated in the centre of the cinema, which offer a view of the screen unobstructed by other patrons.


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External links


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Buildings and structures in Leeds Cinemas in Yorkshire 1912 establishments in England Leeds Blue Plaques