Gutted by fire 29 years after glitzy opening
THESE great archive photos show the highs and lows of one of Derby’s most well-known and popular entertainment venues.
The main image shows the front page of a souvenir brochure produced in 1953 to mark the opening of the glittering new dance hall – the Trocadero on Normanton Road. It was located on the site of the old Alex cinema at the corner of Hartington Road and advertised roller skating as well as ballroom dancing.
The other two photos were taken some 29 years later when the building, by then hosting bingo, had been all but destroyed in a huge fire.
For more than 70 years it had been one of Derby’s best-known entertainment landmarks – and now it was gone after a ferocious fire. The blaze had broken out just before 10.30pm on October 18, 1982. Trocadero employee Pat Spencer spotted the fire while helping new manager Stephen McEvoy – on his first day in the job – lock up for the night. She later told the Derby Telegraph: “I saw that it was quite serious so we immediately called the brigade.”
Earlier in the evening there had been more than 200 customers playing bingo, plus a further 13 members of staff, inside the complex.
The Trocadero had been a popular venue throughout its lifetime. Opened in 1909 as the Derby Alexandra Rink – to cater for the roller-skating craze that had swept the nation – in 1913 it had been converted into the Alexandra Electric Theatre. That cinema closed in the early 1950s and new owner, local entrepreneur Sammy Ramsden, converted it back to a roller-skating rink and ballroom, naming it the Trocadero. The dance hall closed in the 1960s and reopened as a bingo hall soon after.
It was the second fire at the building, by then owned by entertainment giant Thorn EMI, in just four months. City engineers declared the building unsalvageable and the bingo operation transferred to the former Odeon (previously Gaumont) cinema on London Road.
The ruins were eventually cleared and just the name was retained with Trocadero Court built on the site.