Sheffield history: Memories of city's famous Hippodrome cinema

There’s a generation of film fans who may well believe a trip to the cinema was always in such luxurious surroundings.

But, of course, it wasn’t always so. In the days before the multiplexes, your average fleapit, as they were once affectionately called, had us crammed in like sardines with just enough leg room.

Sheffield has had its fair share of cinemas over the decades.

Some older folk may still remember the Sheffield Hippodrome on Cambridge Street in the city centre.

The Hippodrome, which had a seating capacity of more than 2,000, was opened as a theatre at Christmas 1907 – attracting some of the biggest stars of the day such as Charlie Chaplin – before switching to films in 1931.

But in November 1960 cinema-goers were worried as rumours circulated the venue had been sold and was to be demolished. They were promptly scotched by managing director Sidney Kirkham, who had taken over the Hippodrome in 1948 in a £100,000 deal.

Talks of its demise had no doubt been fuelled by developments nearby – the improvement of Moorhead, construction of a new road and a Debenhams store being built.

And indeed by 1961 it had been compulsorily purchased by the ‘Corporation’ and then acquired by a development company.

The curtain – cinemas had them in those days – came down for the last time on March 2, 1961, after a screening of 1939 blockbuster Gone with the Wind, a film it had shown four times over the years. But still, it was watched by a full house.

And The Star – as it has been on countless historic occasions in our city – was there.

We reported there was nothing special about the audience on the final night – the little girl with her granny; the sprawling family party who made everyone in the row move up three; the couple who ploughed over everyone’s toes only to find they were heading for a single seat; and the woman who mislaid her handbag and, seemingly, her husband too.

“I did my courting here,” a man was overheard telling someone who was clearly a complete stranger.

“I courted here and so did my son.

And there was still a smile on the face of chocolate girl Ruby Johnson, who had worked at the Hippodrome since 1916 – an impressive 46 years – and ‘used to sell chocolates from little silver trays’.

She recalled its days as a thriving theatre when ‘as a chocolate girl I could go backstage and see all the stars… all the stars came here’.

The 63-year-old went on: “And the audiences for those shows. For Topsy Turvy, well, my feet didn’t touch the floor as the crowd went up to the circle.”

General manager Ron Morris, who had joined in 1949, lamented its passing. “It’s regrettable that the cinema has to close,” he said. “It’s always made a profit.”

Fixtures and fittings were auctioned off and by April 1963 the seats had gone, the stage had been stripped of its curtains and demolition started.

In its place was to be a hotel, shops and offices as Sheffield city centre reinvented itself, not for the first or last time, to meet the changing needs of the times.