Press Release

20/4/15
Saving the best till last – Quarter backs The Abbeydale Picture House as a community hub for the city.

On Sunday, 26th April, in the Antiques Quarter there will be a Vintage Flea Market based at the Abbeydale Picture House. It’s not just any old event, as at its core it has a mission to put the building on the map and help to secure a future for it. As well as 75 stalls selling vintage, retro, arts, antiques, salvage and artisan wares the market will be doing something pretty unique.

By nature of its location at the Picture House, the Quarter will be highlighting the plight of this valuable Sheffield icon by seeking to celebrate its past, present and future. As well as tours that enable people to experience the history of the building there will be a series of photography exhibitions and also a gallery of local artist impressions of the building with information from Picture Sheffield and Sheffield Archives. The handful of events held at the Picture House have been started just over a year ago to support the quarter groups development which itself seeks to bring improvement to this somewhat neglected part of the city. For these events the current owner has allowed use of the car park area and recently the auditorium as a goodwill gesture to promote the quarter and also in an attempt to himself highlight the building’s plight.

The markets are an integral part of the development of the Sheffield Antiques Quarter which, following crowdfunding last year saw £17,500 pledged to help ‘sign the quarter’. Recently, Sheffield City Council have commissioned and installed brown tourist signage at the 4 entrance points to the quarter demonstrating their confidence and support for this new destination as something credible and exciting for the city. This is recognition indeed and the group have great plans to build upon this approval. Mural and art work projects will be delivered across the area over the next year engaging artists throughout the city as well schools and local community groups. The quarter group have no doubt that it is a vision for the entire area and all those who live, work and play here.

Sheffield should itself, have no doubt that the Abbeydale Picture House is a precious and iconic building with a heritage value to match. However the future can be tentative in a city that has enabled much demolition of the past. Sheffield would do well to stop and listen to this one as it is certain that the quarter group believe with a passion that the Picture House is destined to become THE community hub for the quarter.

The Picture House is a crucial building for the city because, of the 52 pre-war Sheffield cinemas built less than a dozen survive, only two are listed and this is the only one with any hope of community use.
It’s a rare opportunity for the community to really get behind a building of this type with a real hope to save it for the city’s future generations. Sheffield has lost so much already and the best have gone but of the handful that remain the Abbyedale is the jewel. Incredible cinema buildings have already been lost to the city, ironically by fire culminating in demolition. Surely, it must be possible to save this one! The raw fact is that the Antiques Quarter Vintage Markets and events have brought more people to visit and enjoy the building than have stepped inside since it closed as a cinema in 1975. 
A rare opportunity indeed.

Hendrika Stephens - The Monocle Magpie CIC
A social enterprise supporting the development of the Sheffield Antiques Quarter
 

Notes
The Sheffield Antiques Quarter group came together 3 years ago as a constituted community group they have been working hard to promote the quarter as a serious destination for the city - which it has now become. The quarter has seen phenomenal growth in the uptake of empty shop units and the future looks very bright.

The Abbeydale Picture House dates from 1920, designed by Dixon & Steinlet of North Shields and Newcastle-upon-Tyne with a full theatrical stage and fly-tower, and originally had a Brindley & Foster Clavorchester organ which was dismantled after the Second World War. Its intact, in-situ, working safety curtain is unique among British cinemas because it still shows advertisements painted in the 1950s.

The Antiques Quarter Vintage Flea Market will be held on Sunday 26th April from 11-5.
More information can be found on the SAQ website here: http://sheffieldantiquesquarter.co.uk/vintage-market/ and on the facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/934216993268955/
Local Historian Mike Higginbottom (Interesting Times) will be taking the tours
Photography Exhibition: Guy Brown, Ellie Last, Amie Parsons, Darren Galpin & Mike Higginbottom
Artists Impressions: Mark Turner, Sid Fletcher, Mike Rick, Pat Owens & Brian Smith among others.