Details
LEEDS
SE3033NW NEW BRIGGATE
714-1/76/265 (East side)
15/02/60 Nos.32-44 (Even)
Grand Theatre, including former
Assembly Rooms
(Formerly Listed as:
NEW BRIGGATE
(East side)
Grand Theatre including Plaza Cinema
and Nos.34-40 (Even))
GV II*
Theatre, shops and assembly rooms, now rehearsal rooms.
1877-78, conversion of assembly rooms to cinema by 1907, shop
front alterations c1930, 2 shops restored 1978. By George
Corson and James Robertson Watson. Brick, stone dressings,
slate roof.
The main front has 3 elements: the theatre entrance left, row
of 6 shops centre, and assembly rooms, later cinema, right.
High Victorian style.
Theatre entrance: 3 storeys, 4 round arches, the central pair
in an outer arch, balustraded course at 1st-floor level,
arcade of Romanesque windows above; central gable with rose
window flanked by turrets.
Shop facade: 4 tiers of windows: ground floor left (No.44) has
original-style shop window flanked by narrow doorways; the
remaining shop windows have 1930s-style plate glass, some with
sun-burst motifs, and recessed doorways with Art Deco
flooring. 2 tiers of plain round-headed windows above, grouped
in pairs and threes; 4 large windows in similar style to the
theatre entrance to top tier.
Assembly rooms to right: entrance with flat arch in a rendered
facade with face and fan design, moulded outer arch, swags and
central plaque; 3 round-arched windows above; pyramidal roof.
INTERIOR: of theatre: very fine, the elaborate plasterwork
painted in muted shades; the auditorium has 3 horseshoe
balconies decorated with gilded scrollwork, curved downward to
the round proscenium arch in rectangular frame with rounded
corners which is flanked by clustered columns and the boxes.
The female figures flanking the boxes are restorations
post-1978; ribbed and domed ceiling with central chandelier
and plaster pendentives.
The original arrangement of the building included a supper
room above the theatre entrance, with kitchen behind the rose
window in the top gable; separate access to large fire-proof
cellars for wine and storage beneath the entrance.
The Assembly Rooms concert hall, later cinema, now rehearsal
rooms, retains elaborate Classical-style plaster cinema
decoration: paired pilasters with Ionic capitals,
segmental-arched ceiling with ribs and panels decorated with
reliefs of fruit and flowers, round-arched niches flanking
proscenium arch. The foyer retains plaster frieze with torches
and wreaths, Corson's original stairs with turned newels
remain, and cinema stairs with square newels and wrought-iron
scrolled balustrade.
Opened 15 April 1907 as the Assembly Rooms cinema, showing
'New Century Talking and Singing Pictures' with 1,100 seats;
name changed to The Plaza 25 August 1958.
(The Grand Theatre, Leeds: The First Hundred Years: Leeds:
1978-: 13; Sachs, Edwin O.: Modern Opera Houses and Theatres,
Vol.II: 1896-).
Listing NGR: SE3032033834
