Manor

A few weeks ago, I was looking at some old documents and discovered that if this shabby building at Manor Top survives another six years, it will have reached its centenary. This is one of Sheffield’s last remaining suburban cinemas but hasn’t shown a film for 52 years. People in this part of the city will be more familiar with it as a supermarket (Challenge, Frank Dee, Gateway, Somerfield, Tesco) and now Poundland. In fact, it’s spent more time as a shop than it did as a cinema. Sadly, its condition is worsening, and one suspects that demolition will be the eventual outcome.

However, the former Manor Cinema has an interesting link with an important building in Leeds. It opened in December 1927 to the designs of Pascal J. Stienlet and Joseph C. Maxwell, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the same architects who conceived the Majestic Cinema in Leeds city centre, which has recently been restored as the new headquarters for Channel 4.

The Majestic opened in 1922 and remains a distinguished building. The Manor Cinema opened five years later, cost much less to build, and was praised for its smart appearance at one of the highest points in the city.

It was the idea of Thomas Francis McDonald, one of cinema’s pioneers, who had been in business in the United States, and realising the future of the film industry, rushed back to Britain and built his first cinema at Wallsend-on-Tyne in 1904. Afterwards, he was owner or lessee of houses at Gateshead, Blaydon, Mexborough, Worksop, Edinburgh, Shirebrook, Ripley, Heanor, and Coalville. Until the intervention of World War One, he was in the film-renting business, under the title of Photoplays Ltd, based in Sheffield and South Shields, buying films from America, and renting them to cinemas.

In 1927, following expansion of housing estates in the Manor area, McDonald went into business with Michael Joseph Gleeson (the builder) and George W. Dawes (plumbing contractor) to form Manor Picture House Ltd. It acquired a site on sloping land at Manor Top to build a ‘super-cinema’, the largest in South Yorkshire, accommodating 1,700 people.

*A sketch of the Manor Cinema that appeared in newspapers when it opened in December 1927. Picture: British Newspaper Archive.*

M.J. Gleeson were responsible for main construction, including excavation reinforced concrete, brickwork, carpentering, joinery, and roofing.

The façade of the cinema was faced with rustic brick and coloured cement rendered dressings with the ‘MANOR CINEMA’ name in the brick work above the entrance doors. Its exterior was lit by floodlights mounted on concrete pylons.

The entrance to the cinema was through an 18 foot wide vestibule into a spacious foyer housing the pay box. Because of the hillside, the circle, often referred to as the first balcony, was on the same level as the entrance. Stairways led down to the stalls and up a second balcony. The auditorium was decorated with fibrous plaster pilasters, coffered ceiling and beams with a proscenium opening of 23 feet. The decoration was by Frank Flint of London Road with a scheme of pastel shades, not too strongly contrasted, together with an original stipple effect on the wall panels.

The screen was hung in front of a curtain that covered the whole of the back of the stage. The projection room, with two Kalee projectors, was outside the building, at the back of the second balcony. In the basement, under the main entrance, was a 10-table billiard room, and three private rooms, the table supplied by Fitzpatrick & Longley, one of the country’s oldest and reputable manufacturers.

*An aerial view of Manor Top taken between the wars. The Manor Cinema is at the bottom of the photograph. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.*

The Manor Cinema turned out to be one of Sheffield’s finest cinemas and was later joined by the Paragon at Shiregreen and the Ritz at Southey Green. Sound was introduced in the 1930s, and a canopy was erected on the outside, running the entire length of the façade. Thomas McDonald died at Montgomery House, Sharrow Lane, in 1946, the business carried on by his two sons.

*A canopy was added to the outside of the Manor Cinema in 1936. This image of the cinema was taken in 1963. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.*

In 1950, a more modern style proscenium was fitted and in 1955 a new projection suite was fitted at the back of the stalls.

The Manor Cinema was sold to the Leeds based Star Cinema Circuit in 1958 who closed it to carry out further improvements including the installation of a new sound system. The reopening was celebrated in style with a grand fireworks display, when 120 rockets were set off, one for each of the cinemas on the Star Circuit.

It closed as a cinema in 1963, reopening three days later as the Manor Casino – Star Bingo Club. However, films returned on a part time basis along with some bingo sessions, but finally closed in 1969 after being sold to Challenge, a Sheffield-based supermarket group.

The Manor Cinema closed for good in 1969 and was sold to Sheffield-based supermarket group, Challenge, which removed the outside canopy and built a new ground-level floor above the former stalls. Photograph: Picture Sheffield.

It is hard to believe that the Majestic Cinema in Leeds was built a few years before the Manor Cinema. Both buildings were designed by Stienlet & Maxwell of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The Majestic is now Channel 4’s new HQ while the Manor Cinema is a pale shadow of its former self.

For hundreds of years there have been rumours of secret tunnels that existed between Sheffield Castle, going towards the Parish Church (now Sheffield Cathedral), and heading out to Manor Lodge and the Old Queen’s Head at Pond Hill.

After an underground tunnel was found underneath Angel Street in the 1890s, dismissed as an old sewer, interest in the stories waned.

However, excitement resurfaced in 1920, when discoveries were made at Skye Edge as a result of a coal strike.

In order to keep engines running in a nearby brickworks, several men were digging coal from an outcrop on Sky Edge quarry, when they unearthed what appeared to be a subterranean passage cut out of the solid ironstone.

Sky Edge was amid many historical associations – the old Manor Lodge to which Mary Queen of Scots was held captive – was less than a mile away.

It was possible to penetrate for about 100 yards with a naked light, but further on the tunnel appeared to show signs of caving in, and the presence of foul gases made it unwise for the men to carry on.

The main passage had an arched roof, 6ft high, and the floor was on a seam of coal, 3ft thick.

In the light of similar discoveries made at the time, in River Lane, near Pond Street, and at High Street, the discovery raised the possibility that the tunnel at Sky Edge was part of a subterranean passageway which at one time connected Sheffield Castle at Waingate (where the unfortunate Queen was also imprisoned).

Four years later, Sheffield Corporation workmen laying sewers near Manor Lodge unearthed another tunnel, at a depth of nearly 10ft deep, although it ended in a heap of dirt and stones.

The tunnel ran across the road towards Manor Woods. Explorations revealed that in the direction of the Castle the passage was only about ten yards long, apparently demolished at an earlier stage. But in the opposite direction it was possible to walk about 50 yards.

At the time, it was thought that it had some connection with a tunnel found at Handsworth two years previous.

In some places the roof of the tunnel had shifted slightly, thought to have been caused by ploughing operations above, where coping stones had previously been unearthed.

A reporter from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph was invited into the tunnel.

“All sounds from the outside world are cut off, and the thought that people long since dead had trodden the same path was decidedly eerie. The floor, walls, and roof are all made of stone, some of the blocks on the floor being of quite considerable size and thickness.”

An old man at the time, told the same newspaper that he knew of the passage, as it had been opened for the Duke of Norfolk about fifty years previous.

“The tunnel was opened out in the field, and one day, I, in the company of other lads, went on a tour of exploration. We took our lamps with us and were able to walk for quite a considerable distance in the direction of the castle. At last, however, our progress was arrested by a heap of stones and earth and we were compelled to return. I remember the incident well enough because we all got a “belting” when we returned.”

Another claimed that he knew where the tunnel came out of Manor Lodge.

“One had to go down a number of steps into a cellar and from there it was possible to walk some distance along a corridor until a heap of rubbish was encountered. The cellar was within a few yards of the road, being near the large ruined tower,”

The secret tunnel to Sheffield Castle is said to have been through a small opening which was situated in a wall dividing the Lodge from the grounds of the Turret House. This had been boarded up at the time, but rusty staples suggested the fact that years before a strong door was fitted to the passage.

The secret way possibly served two ends. It could either have been used as a means of escape when the Lodge was surrounded, or to assist in the hunting of deer which once abounded in the vicinity.

The legend that Manor Lodge was connected by a subterranean passage to the Castle, the two homes of the Shrewsbury’s, was an old one. But one that suggested that Manor Lodge was connected to the Old Queen’s Head Hotel in Pond Hill had only surfaced later.

There was evidence from a few years before in Thomas Winder’s British Association Handbook and Guide to Sheffield (1910):

“We know that there was a chapel in the Manor House, from the account of the funeral of the 5th Earl, but its position is unknown. The corpse was secretly brought from the said Manor to the Castle.”

Some years before, an underground passage had been discovered, about 4ft high, during drainage excavations under Castle Hill, a passage that was never explored further.

According to that writer, the secret passage from the Manor might have ended near Castle Hill, and not the Old Queen’s Head. Furthermore, the height of the Castle Hill passage corresponded with that of the Manor – about 4ft – whilst the supposed entrance at the Old Queen’s Head was said to be half as high again.

Drainage excavations, which led to the discovery of traces of a passage were referred to in “Rambles Round Sheffield (1915). The writer mentions the Lodge-end of the supposed passage.

“The old lady (custodian at Manor Lodge) will point to the entrance to the subterranean passage which is said to have connected the Lodge with the Castle. During drainage excavations at the castle years ago, traces of a passage were found, but the workmen smashed them in before attention was directed to them. Perhaps some day efforts will be made to trace the passage.”

It was possible that there were two passages, one going from the Castle to the Manor, and the other from the Castle to the gabled structure in Pond Hill (now the Old Queen’s Head), but supposed to have been the laundry of the Castle.

With regards the Old Queen’s Head, a reporter from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph visited in March 1925 and spoke with the landlord, Mr Ellis.

“Yes, there is an old tunnel here,” he said, “which is supposed to go to the Manor Castle, but it is all stoned up, although the entrance can plainly be seen.”

Proceeding into one of the cellars, the reporter was shown the entrance which faced in the direction of Midland Railway Station and was about six feet high. It was impossible to go in, as within two feet of the wall a strong stone barricade had been erected.

“I feel quite sure that this goes to the Manor,” said Mr Ellis, “as since the work commenced up there (Manor Lodge), we have been ‘swarmed’ with rats, and, possibly, they have been driven down here.”

And finally, there was the story of a worker at Steer and Webster, cutlery manufacturers, on Castle Hill, who told his fellows in the late 1800s about the works yard where a shaft or dry well was being used to deposit rubbish, and at some distance down the shaft, on the Manor side, there was an opening, apparently a doorway, which he declared was the entrance to the secret passage to the Manor.

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