How one of Yorkshire's oldest and biggest cinemas made a big screen comeback

The story of the Abbeydale Picture House begins in 1920 when silent film star Harold Lloyd was at the height of his fame. A towering presence on Sheffield’s Abbeydale Road, it seated more than 1,500 and boasted a ballroom underneath.

When the boom of the talkies sounded the death knell for the cine-variety movement (a mix of films with piano accompaniment and live theatre shows) it became full-time cinema, but its most recent history has been marred by missed opportunities.

Since it closed in 1975, the building has passed through various hands but culturally it has lay dormant for a number of years. The Friends of Abbeydale Picture House community group looked set to offer a lifeline and after taking ownership of the building in 2005 set about raising funds and installing a new stage.

Sadly,the group went into administration and subsequent plans to open a climbing centre never materialised. In recent years it has provided the backdrop for car boot sales, vintage markets and with some one-off live music performances there was hope that the show may finally go on.

The momentum briefly continued with the reinstallation of cinema seats and a new cafe, but then last year the shutters went up again. However, now after years of stop-start action, The Abbeydale Picture House finally looks set to be brought fully back to life with the CADs trust, which runs various studio and entertainment spaces in Sheffield, having taken on a 25 year lease of the building.

Even with it flaking paint and crumbling plasterwork, it’s easy to succumb to the Abbeydale’s rugged charms, which no doubt explains the various attempts to bring it back to life. The building itself is solid and Grade II listed. Downstairs, the cinema seats are in place, a giant screen, sound system and projectors are ready to roll and all the nicely new built cafe bar needs is customers.

As Nick Potter, CADs project officer, walks around the multi-levelled, maze-like, interior with all it’s various little rooms, nooks and crannies, the size of the project becomes clear. Fortunately, Potter has ambitions to match the vastness of the building.

“We want it to be almost constantly open, to be a fully functional arts, film and community venue with all the other spaces additionally used,” he says poking his head in yet another room. The other spaces he refers to will make up potential studio and office spaces for hire, with the aim of filling the building with a variety of people in different fields. There’s even the suggestion of an open-office.

“We’re looking at setting up a tentative co-working space with some people that are involved in Union Street [a co-working space in Sheffield city centre]. Like a flexible office space upstairs,” he tells me.

The venue has had a series of events already on since CADs took over, including sell-out film screenings. At present in the giant area that was once the backstage section of the theatre, is home to a contemporary art exhibition that’s due to run for six weeks.

In the future, Potter would like to see it transformed into its own separate live gig venue, but for now only seated events can take place in the main room due to healthy and safety restrictions on the sloped floor.

Aside from film screenings, theatre productions, live comedy and sit-down music gigs, he’d also like to expand into putting on productions of live scores and other more adventurous events. At present the venue is running on Temporary Event Notices, running weekend-long events throughout the year but the plan is to have a full venue license by the end of the year.

The space is intended to be much more than just a venue however. Potter wants to see it as a community hub. “What we really want is for CADs to build up, like we have done with our other spaces, a really great community of people all doing different things but working in the same building and working with each other.

“It’s not going to be a case of having it as a venue and then everything else is secondary, we want it to be a bustling place and have every room filled.”

Whilst CADs are in the process of doing repairs, finding their feet and looking into the likes of Heritage Lottery Funding in order to invest significantly in the restoration of the bricks and mortar, they are not curating events themselves but are instead looking to hear from people who want to use the space and run their own events.

One such event will be the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival which will take place there over May 5 to 7 and before that there will be a weekend-long beer, which will feature live music, talks, films and a vintage market.

“At this stage we just want people to get in touch if they have any ideas for the space,” Potter says, “The most crucial thing for us right now is that it’s vibrant and it’s working.”

At present the upper level of the building is off limits to the public as work is underway. More seats also need to be installed but Potter hopes that it will not be too far into the future before they can open up the level, which will expand the capacity of the building significantly.

“We can have around 350-400 people downstairs at the moment and then upstairs we’d be looking at adding another 200 to 300,” he adds.

Between them, the CADS team is experienced enough to know that when you are dealing with old buildings nothing is straightforward or predictable.

“These buildings were designed under different regulations,” he says. “But because it’s listed there is also a bit more leeway as the structure of the building dictates how we work.”

Nevertheless, Potter has a distinct vision for the building over the next few years. “In five years time I’d like to see a building that is midway through its restoration or is about to be restored but is a fully usable space and we’ve managed to uncover all of the history - because there’s still a lot of that is a total mystery. Basically, we want a 500-600 capacity venue for film, music, theatre, comedy - everything.”

One of his other key principles is making sure the building is utilised to benefit the diverse neighbourhood it sits in.

“I would also like to see it integrated into the whole of the Abbeydale community. One of the interesting things about this place back in the 1970s was that it had regular Asian film nights so that’s another really crucial thing. We don’t just want this to be a fancy venue for people that are travelling from the city centre, we want it to be open to all.

“Also, it’s such an inspirational space that we also want to be able to open up the place for some skills-based learning. The ultimate dream is to have the opportunity to open up the building not just as somewhere to go, but as somewhere people feel they can get involved in.”