Summary
A former variety and touring production theatre of 1899 by Bertie Crewe, with Baroque red terracotta façade with alterations.
Reasons for Designation
The Victoria Theatre Salford, a variety and touring production theatre of 1899 by Bertie Crewe with alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a rare surviving example in England of a theatre designed solely by Crewe, retaining decorative exterior features and a good early surviving example of his characteristic interior design with decorative plaster and timberwork;
* retaining a relatively little-altered auditorium with a very unusual two-tier first balcony with false balustrade fronting the upper tier;
* for its unusually complete survival of stage machinery on the principles of the English Wood Stage, including surviving grave trap, and with very rare provision for ‘scruto’ sliding cuts.
History
The Victoria Theatre was built as a variety theatre capable of hosting ‘number one’ touring productions, with Sir Henry Irving laying the foundation stone in October 1899 and then opening the theatre on Monday 10 December 1900. However, it was showing films along with live shows as early as 1901, which is relatively early for adoption by a variety theatre. (The Lumière brothers’ pioneer projected film show was transferred to the Empire Music Hall in Leicester Square in March 1896.) This is the earliest surviving of Bertie Crewe’s theatres in England, and the only Victorian one in England wholly by him; there is one other, in Scotland, and two of his Edwardian theatres are also listed (the Palace in Redditch, National Heritage List for England – NHLE – entry 1268300, and the Shaftesbury in London, NHLE 1378647).
The raked stage was fairly large by the standards of the day. The theatre was designed as a traditional ‘hemp house’, with ropes and pulleys for raising and lowering the flown scenery. The stage stood over a substantial void with structural beams that were designed to accommodate sliding floor sections for traps, based upon the traditions of the English Wood Stage, with wooden substage machinery with locking paddle levers and four bridges used to raise and lower scenery and people between substage and stage level. Few examples of this kind and the extent of equipment now survive.
Two features of the design are thought to be unique in the United Kingdom. The first is the use of the ‘scruto’ method for withdrawing the sliding floor sections of a cut in the stage. These would normally be rigid and slide to either side in grooves underneath the fixed wings – thus requiring the wings to be at least as wide as the horizontal length of the cut section. However, here the sliding sections were made of planks joined together on the underside with strong canvas, so that the sections were flexible. These withdrew along grooves in sub-stage timbers which slope downwards, rather than accommodating them horizontally. The second is the construction of the lower balcony with a raised rear circle behind a balustraded parapet, giving the visual appearance of a second balcony to what is in fact a single balcony of two tiers, served by lower and upper galleries.
Colour films (hand-coloured) were shown here in 1907 and by 1913 the Victoria was in cinema use full time. Between 1917 and 1919 it was used for live theatre again, but in 1919 it underwent refurbishment for cinema use once again including minor alterations to the roof, painting of the ceiling, and construction of a café in Jacobean style. It remained in that use until July 1958 when it was closed and then used as a clothing store, although occasional use of the theatre by repertory groups and pantomimes did occur. Its last period of theatrical use was from 1963 until the summer of 1971. In 1973 it was turned over to bingo, which soon failed. The theatre then remained dark until the 1980s when bingo was tried again, successfully running at the theatre until 2012, by when the theatre was falling into disrepair.
The central bay was originally surmounted by a pediment and small square-domed tower, together with a cornice and parapet across the whole frontage with four gabled oculi, and straight-sided pavilion roofs over the end bays. This was still the arrangement when an aerial photo was taken in 1951 and these features are thought to have been removed and replaced with the current brick parapet in the 1970s. This may also be when the canopy above the shopfronts was removed, and the shopfronts altered. The building was listed in 1980. Early in the C21 the glazed cast-iron entrance canopy was damaged in a traffic accident and removed, but has since been lost (although the bases of its columns remain in situ in 2023). Poor maintenance has also resulted in the loss of some of the architectural plasterwork, and the majority of seats have been removed. Nevertheless the majority of Crewe’s auditorium decoration survives.
William Robert 'Bertie' Crewe (1860 – 1937) was one of the leading English theatre architects in the boom of 1885 to 1915. His architectural education was in the London office of Clement Dowling, and at the Atelier Laloux, Paris, the firm famed for its association with the Gare d’Orsay (now the Musée d'Orsay). The Mogador, one of his Parisian theatres (1913), is still in use. Crewe specialised in theatres and (later) cinemas. He was one of the most dynamic and influential theatre architects of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, designing with florid and often wild splendour, coloured by a mannerist Baroque. He worked on several listed buildings.
Details
A former variety and touring production theatre of 1899 by Bertie Crewe, with alterations.
MATERIALS: steel frame, red terracotta and red brick above stuccoed ground floor, Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: facing west onto Great Clowes Street with crush hall, auditorium and stage each under its own roof, and with a dressing-room tower in the north-east corner.
EXTERIOR: the two-storey Baroque terracotta frontage is of five bays defined by pilasters which are plain at ground-floor and Ionic above, with a moulded string course, first-floor sill band and upper string course, and plain brick parapet above. The first floor has two windows to each of the outer four bays; all replacements but retaining original leaded upper lights, and surmounted by small pediments. The centre bay has a wide window, also with leaded upper lights, with an arched surround and a swan-neck pediment in the tympanum. Above this in relief is the name VICTORIA THEATRE. The ground floor has a basket-arched opening to each bay. The right-hand one is blind save for two doorways. These and the lower portions of the other four are concealed by modern roller shutters. The central bay has a recessed double doorway with part-glazed six-panel doors and multi-pane overlights; the other three bays have small-paned overlights in the arches. The feet of four cast-iron columns to the former entrance canopy remain in situ at the front-and-back of pavement.
The terracotta façade returns for one bay of each of the north and south walls. To the south the building is largely obscured by the abutting building and is mostly blind brick walling, with parapets stepping down towards the rear.
The north wall is more complex, with monopitched aisles flanking the blind auditorium and stage walls above with their pitched and mansard roofs, and numerous two-over-two sash windows with segmental heads. Modern roller shutters cover three doorways towards the rear. At the left is a four-storey tower with similar single-pane sashes (some blocked) arranged in two stacks with a central stack of smaller landing windows.
The dressing-room tower occupies the right-hand half of the east (rear) wall, with three stacks of four windows, all blocked at ground-floor. Set back to the left is a two-storey, flat-roofed extension, against the rear wall of the stage-house (which is blind save for a doorway set high at the left-hand side).
INTERIOR: the lobby retains steps and some cornicing, but mostly modern finishes. The frame of the screen to the ambulatory also remains, with its side panels. The ambulatory curves around the rear of the auditorium and retains cornicing, an embossed-wallpaper dado and decorative mirrors with swan-neck pediments. Similar fabric remains in the first-floor circulation areas and ‘great saloon’.
The large proscenium arch has a decorative border and spandrels. It is flanked by two-tiered boxes with Corinithian columns below terms. The fronts match the curved first and second balcony fronts, with carved wood and elaborate gilded plasterwork with winged cherubs and festoons in panels. The raked first balcony is supported by two plain cast-iron columns and has an upper tier fronted by applied balustrading, and with a curved timber rear screen similar to those fronting the access galleries. The second balcony is also steeply raked and (in 2023) closed off from the auditorium, but also retains its rear screen with bench seating to its front.
The principal ceiling has one large and two smaller roses, and bordered panels where it rakes to the proscenium. The stalls and balconies retain some of their moulded plasterwork ceiling and wall decoration. A modern suspended ceiling has been inserted above the stage. Some of the private areas retain features including a timber dresser, lavatories and tiling. The dressing-room tower has some modern services and finishes.
The raked stage (1:24 or half an inch to the imperial foot) survives with two corner traps set downstage left and right, with a grave trap set centre-stage which retains its platform below the stage. Upstage of this are a series of cuts with wooden substage machinery with paddle levers to lock and unlock the sliding cut sections.
