THE PLAZA.

It is hard to imagine today that not so long ago if you stood in Mersey Square, Stockport at the entrance to the bus station you would be within ten minutes walking distance of eight cinemas and theatres. On Princes Street there were the Princes and Palladium cinemas, on Duke Street was the Ritz cinema, on Wellington Road were the Carlton and Super cinemas and on Petersgate were the Theatre Royal and the Hippodrome Theatre. The eighth was of course the Plaza cinema the only one of them that is still in existence.

The Plaza, which is an outstanding surviving example of the 1930's Art Deco Cinema, was completed in 1932 and was opened on October the 8^th of that year with a charity show in aid of Stockport Infirmary. It is of course a Grade II listed building and there are plans for a full restoration to its original opening condition. Once this is completed it will be the first authentically refurbished operational Super Cinema in the UK.

The building, which is on the south end of Mersey Square, was originally the site of some old cottages and it was at first thought to be too small a plot of land on which to build a cinema. However by removing some 10,000 tons of rock sufficient space was cleared to cut the foundations and, once the building process got under way, it was completed in record time.

My first recollections of the cinema are from the mid 1930's when we would wait at the tram stop outside the Fire Station on Mersey Square (where the Merseyway shopping centre now stands) for our tram to Higher Brinksway and if it was dark seeing the running lights on the canopy above the front entrance. They were every bit as spectacular as the lighting on one of the big cinemas in London or any other major city.

Another feature of the Plaza is that it is one of the very few cinemas in the UK that still retains its original Compton Theatre Organ in full working order. It is one of the venues that from time to time the BBC broadcast their organ recital programmes. I have been there in the recent past to hear one of these recitals and it is a wonderful experience.

One of the first films that I can remember seeing at the Plaza was "Mrs Miniver" with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon during the war years.

The cinema is now owned by the Stockport Plaza Trust who purchased it in 1999, with the help of a grant of £500,000 from Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, and the Trust is hoping that its bid for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant will be successful to enable the planned further restoration to take place.

We are very fortunate here in Stockport to have a Super Cinema that is still used for its original intended purpose, that of being an entertainment centre for the town and I

would urge everyone, whenever they can, to support the activities that take place at The Plaza.

     by Alan Edwards 2007