Visionary at play
Frank Matcham was an acclaimed architect who designed some of our most recognisable buildings. A century after his death, Phil Penfold looks back at
his legacy. Main picture by Gary Longbottom.
Frank Matcham was not only one of the leading architects and designers of the Victorian and Edwardian age, but of any age. A great innovator, many of his buildings can still be found in our towns and cities, including here in Yorkshire. His signature style was one of confident flamboyance, and over the years many millions of people have stepped over the threshold of his palatial designs, especially his theatres. Matcham was born in Devon, in 1854, and died in Essex in 1920. His legacy is remarkable, but the sad fact is that many of our communities didn’t recognise the beauty and value of a Matcham building, and in the 1950s and 60s several were torn down to make way for shopping developments.
His designs were all different, with flourishes that took the breath away. The facades were splendid and the interiors were eye-wateringly extravagant. A couple from an ordinary home in Shiregreen, in Sheffield, would have been amazed when they took their seats in the city’s opulent Empire Palace on Charles Street. It opened just in time for the Christmas festivities in 1895. Or they could, a few years later, have popped over the road to the Theatre Royal in Tudor Street, where Matcham reorganised and embellished an existing structure.
The interior design for the Empire was “a bold Flemish treatment”, and on the ceiling above the stalls were “life-sized figures, playing different musical instruments”. There was a sliding roof (to let out the smoke from the cigarettes and cigars in the auditorium and bars) and it had over 2,000 seats. The design for the Royal (which stood close to where we can find the Crucible today) was rather more modest, though it did have six private boxes and it gleamed with white and gold adornments.
Sadly, both theatres have disappeared from the landscape – the Empire was demolished in 1959, and the Royal went up in flames just a day before New Year, in December 1935. The fire was so severe the entire roof collapsed and, as it plunged down, it took the gallery, the upper circle and then the dress circle with it. The embers in the sky drifted across to the Lyceum, and that too was in danger for a few hours.
There is a little glimpse into the life of a touring performer at the time – Castelli and his Accordion Band had been to the Royal and left their instruments in the dressing room. They were due to perform the following week but their instruments went up in smoke. However, the kind folk of Sheffield raised £500 so that each of the accordions could be replaced.
Frank Matcham was in demand over on the east coast, too. In 1893, the Hull Grand Theatre and Opera House was built on George Street, at a cost of £20,000. “The finished interior looked far more like a place where you’d expect to find the King of Bavaria sitting in the royal box,” says historian and theatre expert Dr David Wilmore, whose acclaimed Theatresearch archive is based in Dacre, near Harrogate. “Sadly, when the building became a cinema in 1930, this riot of colour was all swept away.”
The Hull (Empire) Palace of Varieties opened its doors on Anlaby Street in December 1897, and the first music played by the pit band was the National Anthem. “The decoration here was in the Moorish style, a complete contrast to the front of the place. It was bomb damaged during the war but they reopened in 1951. It managed to stagger on until the mid-Sixties and was demolished in 1966,” says Wilmore.
Gus Elen, a superstar of his day, was top of the bill on that opening night – which shows that the people of Hull were enjoying great entertainment from first-rate artistes.
Theatre expert John Earl believes that Matcham was a master in his field. “He took his inspiration from everywhere and nowhere, he stood well aside from contemporary architectural fashions. They were totally irrelevant to the kind of magic he was in the business to create.”
It wasn’t just the bigger cities or the larger towns of Yorkshire that got Matcham’s attention – Keighley had its own Queen’s Theatre and
Opera House (no less) on Queen Street, which the architect remodelled in 1898 for about £6,000.
Castleford, too, had its own Theatre Royal on Albion Road, which could hold 1,000 people when full. It, too, was demolished in the Sixties and a supermarket now stands on the site.
Halifax was blessed with an even bigger venue – the 2,000-seater Grand, on North Bridge, which opened in the summer of 1898. This