The foundation stone of the Castle Theatre was laid on 3rd October 1907 and the first play, ‘The Lady of Lyons’, was performed there on 31st July 1908. The Castle Theatre on Stockton High Street, later became the Empire.
Image and details courtesy of Derek Buttle.
What a reminder from Chris the tobacanist were you could buy your exotic fags such as pasha russian blacks pall mall and lots of others before going across the road to the Maizon oh happy days
This photograph appears to have been taken shortly after the premises first opened. as the stonework and brickwork appear ‘fresh’ compared to later photographs which show the blackening effects of industrial and domestic coal-fire air pollution. It’s curious in terms of architectural design, how what would appear to have been originally designed as an arched corner entry. has for some reason been ‘infilled’ ( to the right of men on corner ) with brickwork and a pair of odd windows. Sometime later however, this space was opened-up to create another shop-unit at ground floor level, which traded for many years as a popular newsagents / tobacconists.
If I remember correctly the door on the left behind the group of men went up to Sloanses snooker hall with quite a lot of tables
Correct Anon, Sloans was the place we very young bucks learned to play killer billiards, snooker was a game for wimps in those days, who needed more than three balls the hard lads would say.
We always had to have a spare half crown in our pockets for the pocket the ball competition, a spare ball placed in front of the six pockets, put your money down then get the white in each pocket without touching the spare ball which meant touching the cushion in the right place and rolling round the shoulder, you had to get all six pockets to get the money.
The night I won the jack pot I was then barred from playing again, they said I was too young but gave me the money. We had some brilliant players and billiards was my game for years, the conversion to snooker came because most Sergeants messes had snooker tables and held competitions, I found it quite easy to win after the Sloans training.
Correct there were 12 tables 6 upstairs and 6 down.I spent a lot of time in there during my teens.
We have some of the lamps from inside there being used since it was knocked down. My dad got a good deal on I think back in the 70’s
I can remember being taken to the pictures for the very first time by my Mum & Dad to see Bambi at the Empire – it would have been about 1959 – I seem to remember a long passageway leading up to the cinema.
The policeman on point duty looks very relaxed, I wonder how much traffic he had to contend with. Saw some great films there but they had nasty habit of breaking down, when it happened you would get a free ticket to come back another day.
When I worked at Head Wrightson’s in Thornaby from 1953-61 this was my way home at night on my bike, the bus and later a car. It was always busy at 5pm. There was also point duty policeman at both Church Road and Bishopton Lane. This had to be coordinated with both officers being so close to each other.
Such a beautiful building…… Just look what it was replaced with. Shocking.