Development of King Street ( Mc Curtain Street since 1921) only began after the building of St Patrick's bridge in 1789 and St. Patrick's Quay in the 1820s.It is useful to think of the area sandwiched between these two streets as one block as the warehousing which ran along so much of St. Patrick's Quay often ran more or less right through as you see in the 1897 Goad Insurance Plan below.
Victorian Cork therefore spread East Following the Georgian development of the city centre.
Easter Monday night 1897 saw the opening of the much-heralded Dan Lowry Palace of Varieties at 15 King Street in Cork, a sister theatre to the Olympia (then The Empire Palace) in Dublin.
The account is taken from ' Infinite Variety: Dan Lowry's Music Hall 1879-1897'.
In general,the Variety Theatres were large and lavish, built and run by the great theatrical impresarios.They were a more upmarket version of the Music Hall which had developed as a form of working-class entertainment in London of the 1800s.
Although the present day theatre extends all the way back to St. Patrick's Quay, its King street entrance was originally occupied by a private house owned by Mr John O'Connell and built in 1840. It was a two bay three storied affair, similar in design to the houses on its immediate left and right.The theatre itself was built on a site owned by Sir Alfred Dobbin which had previously been a coal store. (Sir Alfred was in partnership with Ogilivie and Co. across the road and his wine cellars were to be located in the basement of the theatre.)
The theatre, its beautiful Victorian interior, the ornate boxes with their elaborate moorish design, the magnificent proscenium arch and the original glass and steel canopy on King Street were all the work of the architect and designer R. H. Brunton..........himself a very colourful character. More later!
The Palace was partly lit by gas and partly by innumerable electric jets of different colours powered by two dynamos in the basement. Each section of the raked auditorium had its own bar fitted up in the most expensive style with mirrored walls and decorated ceilings. Above the boxes were large oil painted panels by the Cork artist Samuel Wright representing Music, Dance, Fancy and Folly in the shape of lively though decorously draped ladies! These have since been lost.
Seating was as follows:
Pit: 442
Pit Stalls: 100
Orchestra Stalls: 76
Gallery: 500
Standing Room: 150
Almost 1300 people jammed in !
Prices ranged from £1for a box to 6d for a seat in the gallery with the beautifully ornamented balustrade. The gallery was entered, not from King Street, but from St. Patrick's Quay where a box office was set into the wall. Access was by a pair of staircases. The ceiling of the theatre was a gem of ornamentation, 68 ft x 36ft, panelled by a team of London experts, probably from RH Brunton's own company. Suspended from the centre was an extremely attractive 'sun-burner.' This was a circle of gas burning lights for illumination or ventilation. (Example only left).
The photo above is a section of the packed crowd in the early 1900s at the Palace showing the ornamented balcony.
Above: 1913 Guy's Almanac Street Directory showing Palace Theatre and Metropole Buildings
A word about R.H. Brunton (1841-1901)..... Richard Henry lived only 60 years but he certainly lived them to the full. Born near Aberdeen, he trained as a railway engineer before being sent to Japan to establish lighthouses at the approaches to Yokohama, Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka to allow foreign shipping safe access to the ports thus promoting trade and opening Japan to the west.
By the time he left in 1876 he had built over 30 lighthouses, and established 2 lightships, 13 buoys, and 3 beacons around 1500 miles of coastline. He was also variously consulted on railways, bridges, roads, drainage, land reclamation and telegraph lines - all projects about establishing communications infrastructure.
Back in London he bought a business producing architectural ornaments and practised as an architect and engineer in theatre design, and ornamentation- doubtless his knowledge of lighting provided the link. Interestingly there is a large amount of information on his civil engineering works as 'The Father of Yokohama' and only a line or two about his work in the theatre.
The promise of top acts continued from opening night as announced in The Cork Constitution when the line-up included The Tiller Girls Dancing Troupe and Professor Jolly's world renowned Cinematographe, the first time moving pictures had been seen in Cork. Charlie Chaplin appeared on stage in 1912 as did Laurel and Hardy and George Formby. Eugene Sandown, the world's strongest man, also appeared at The Palace giving rise to the city's famous trademark and slogan -'Murphy's Stout is Good, No Doubt!
Moving pictures gradually replaced music hall and the Palace became a picture house in 1930, billed as - 'The House with the Perfect Sound'. Stories abound from the era when The Palace was a thriving cinema but it eventually closed its doors as such in June 1988.
That year Ward-Anderson (Abbey Films) sold the theatre to the Everyman for £120 000 in the form of a 12 year lease at £10 000 per year. There were pros and cons. Although the Palace had been turned into a cinema could it be reconfigured and renovated to meet the needs of a contemporary theatre? Was saving The Palace in keeping with the ethos of Everyman as it had developed over 25years?
The stage itself was cramped with limited wing space suited to music hall rather than drama. Dan Donovan, in An Everyman Life is quoted as saying that the theatre was 'jerry-built'; there were serious problems with leaks in the roof. It was 'too big, too old-fashioned and too dilapidated'.
Notwithstanding these concerns Everyman took on the Palace which was reopened in 1990 and was completely restored in time for its centenary celebrations in 1997. The canopy, lost in a road traffic accident, was replaced and is the work of stained glass artist, James Stevens- whose work can also be seen in the Crawford Art Gallery. Twenty Years on, the Palace Theatre is once again the thriving (650 Seat) Victorian-style theatre it was conceived as.
Reading References:
Evening Echo - 1.3.90 (p. 3), 20.3.90 (p. 2), feature - 31.3.90(p. 5)
Cork Constitution - 14.4.1897, 20.4.1897
No comments:
Post a Comment