Art Deco Beauty: Stockport Plaza

Not far from Manchester lies Stockport, a town with excellent charity shops, a history of hatmaking (which will be explored in a future post once I finally visit the museum), wartime air raid tunnels, and a fabulous theatre; The Plaza. 

The theatre shortly after it opened in 1932

The Plaza was built as a performance theatre and 'super cinema' in 1932, erected at the cusp of the arrival of talking pictures, and decorated lavishly in ostentatious art deco style. My mum lived in Stockport in the 1970s, but alas by then the Plaza was a run-down bingo hall, a decayed ruin of its former self. In 2000 a trust was set up to buy the cinema back from the leisure company who had allowed it to fall into disrepair and who had ripped out some of the beautiful original features, and after just six months' intensive restoration the Plaza was back in business and back to its full 1930s splendour.

The Compton Organ

Thankfully, even in the bingo hall days, the Compton theatre organ survived relatively unscathed, and is in full working order today. The glass panels light up in a myriad of colours all around it, and the organ has no electrical amplification - its enormous sound is produced solely by pipes and valves, disguised behind one of the filigree panels in the wall to the side of the stage.

Prior to every film shown at the Plaza there is an organ recital of classic tunes from the 1920s-50s, it's marvellous to hear them, and to watch the old ladies in the crowd singing along.

Lloyd Loom furniture in the tearoom

One casualty was the Plaza tearoom's furniture, which was lost. Luckily, it was all made by the fabulous Lloyd Loom, who are still going strong after nearly a century. They traced and recreated the original designs and colour scheme, so well in fact that when we visited the tearoom I thought the furniture was all original; it was perfect, down to the tiny vintage brass labels on the back of each Lloyd Loom chair.

Stage panorama copyright Njo LEDs Ltd.

In the early days the theatre was lit by 'Holophane' colour-changing prismatic lighs, during the restoration the beautiful rainbow colours were put back into place using modern LED technology. The colour changing light show is captivating, bathing every gilded surface and really showing off every little feature of the interior.

Picture copyright Stockport Plaza

The exterior. The Plaza was built into a solid sandstone rock face, as were many other buildings along the same street, including the WWII Stockport tunnels air raid shelters which I visited recently and will cover in another post.

Picture Copyright Stockport Plaza

Recently I visited the Plaza to see The Artist and, rather aptly, The Smallest Show on Earth, a British comedy from 1957 starring Peter Sellers, in which a run-down 'fleapit' of a cinema is restored to its silent-era glory. It was lovely to see these films in such an appropriate vintage setting. You also get a film before every feature screening, such as a Laurel and Hardy or Harold Lloyd comedy short, and a vintage newsreel! For the traditionalists among you there is also the national anthem at the end of each film, along with a kitsch Technicolor reel of the Queen trooping the colour in the 1950s.

Picture by Steve Rogers, on our outing to see The Artist

The Plaza runs films, plays, dance and variety performances all year round and you can find more information on their website.You can find even more stunning photos of the Plaza here and here.

Stage panorama copyright Njo LEDs Ltd.

Vintage finds - bumper edition!

Today I realised I haven't done one of these posts for ages, I used to do them monthly. So here it is - a whole Summer's worth of vintage rooting. I've probably forgotten a few bits, and I'm going to do separate posts for a few select treasures!


1950s cabinet - £2! This was from a local antique shop, the owner told me he occasionally takes house clearance lots and so buys 'rubbish' in order to get the 'good' pieces - unfortunately he'd also broken one of the glass doors putting it outside, hopefully I'll be able to make a replacement one day. Frankly I think a person can probably make more money nowadays selling 50s furniture than unfashionable Victorian stuff, but obviously his distaste for it is to my benefit!


Sputnik legs! It also has glittery backing paper and curvy glass shelves. My friend Ciana helped me bring it home, and all I can say is that carrying two small children about must make you strong - she heaved it around with ease, I was a sweaty, wheezing heap after pushing it upstairs on my own!


1950s/60s shelving unit - £15. I love this, after getting rid of our massive hefty old CRT TV, I got the small new one and wanted something vintage to put it on, where I could also display some of my immense collection of trinkets. This came from a seller in Failsworth Mill, a large antiques and collectables centre where the prices are reasonable and the many stallholders are amenable to haggling!


1950s amoeba shaped mirrors, £3 each from a vintage jumble sale, held by a friend-of-a-friend who was selling her possessions in preparation for a move to France.



50s clock - £1. this was running when I got it from the same vintage jumble sale, stopped by the time I got home, started working again after I took out and oiled the workings, and promptly stopped again three days later. It's been going for so long that a hole inside that holds a moving part has become slightly oval instead of round, so it keeps going out of alignment.


1930s Lloyd Loom seat/basket - free! I got this by bargaining with the seller from whom I bought the shelving unit above, it was originally priced at £10, which is still fairly reasonable seeing as it is in completely original condition - most Lloyd loom furniture you find has been repainted, but this retains its factory paint job and deco foliage upholstery. It's strong enough to sit on and is currently hiding a small proportion of my laundry mountain.


Lustreware vase - £7, haggled down from £10 from the same seller as the shelves and basket. Another item for my fawn collection!


1920s-30s uranium glass bowl for my collection, £5, car boot sale.


Enormous glass cake dome, £5, car boot sale. Not vintage but still useful!


50s cats - £1.49 each, charity shop.


Vintage style metal memo board from Rose & Co., won in a raffle by my mum and stepdad. Aerospace boyfriend immediately drew a huge penis on it in dry-wipe marker, as he does with most things.


Beautiful 1950s diamanté necklaces - these belonged to my grandmother, were given by her to my sister when we were little, and my sister passed them to me recently as they are too glitzy for her and too likely to attract the small grasping hands of my niece!


Amazing vintage fully fashioned stockings, still in their original packaging and with spectacular pearl and rhinestone adornments at the heel! These will be saved as they are very special and were part of a swap I did with Miss Matilda. I sent her the framed 1920s prints I blogged about here, which came up very nicely with a bit of cleaning!


She was also generous enough to send me this beautiful jewellery as a gift - I squealed with delight when I opened the package, it used to belong to Lana Turner! Her daughter, Cheryl Crane, auctioned some of her belongings a few years after she died, and I remember drooling over the lovely things for sale at the time. Thanks again, Miss M! You are lovely! xxx


After I received the jewellery I spied this book for £1 at a car boot sale written by Crane, and decided to read a little more about Lana Turner's life. I've only just started it, but it is filled with scandal!


Movie monsters book with Christopher Lee on the cover, 20p, local church jumble sale.


Esther Williams biography, £2.99, Oxfam charity shop. I really enjoyed reading this, she's very frank and funny, and I'm glad she is still alive and lending her name to an amazing range of swimsuits! This one and this one are my favourites, they also do a black one with cherries which is beautiful but I can't find it anywhere in the UK. My only criticism of this book is that Esther's co-writer and editor, Digby Diehl, has a tendency to repeat things such as historical details and lists of names which have already been mentioned in previous chapters.


Max Factor biography, £1 from the pound shop in Burnley, a gift from my mum. This was really interesting as it gives a great insight into the man behind the company. I, like many people I expect, wasn't aware that Max Factor was an actual person, I had assumed it was just a brand name. He was a Hollywood makeup artist and cosmetics developer in the golden age of cinema, and this book is a great read for fans of films from the 20s-50s as well as those interested in the history of cosmetology.

July's Vintage Purchases

A couple of weeks ago we ventured out to a car boot sale, I took £20 and bought a few vintage treasures!


Green dressing table set bits, £1. This is missing a tray, a powder dish and a lid from one of the trinket pots, and the little old lady seller told me that the rest of the set had been there but that an earlier customer was going to buy it and dropped half of it, breaking the other pieces! I have no idea why she didn't charge them for breaking her stock.


1950s sunburst wall clock, £4. Unfortunately we got this home and found it to be not working, hopefully Paul can fix it with his soldering and electrics skills.


Vintage Singer manually opeated sewing machine with case and key, £15. A man was trying to haggle the seller down, telling her he only wanted it for an ornament and trying to make her accept £5. He faked disinterest so we swooped in and gave her the £15, you should have seen his face when she then produced the case from under her table. I certainly didn't begrudge paying the asking price seeing as it's worth a lot more, and I didn't appreciate Mr. Cheapskate trying to con the nice girl selling it - there's haggling when something is overpriced, and then there's plain dishonesty.


I looked it up at Singer's serial number registry where you can check the serial number of almost every individual Singer sewing machine and find its year and place of manufacture. My machine was made in 1920 at Clydebank, Scotland, and is in perfect condition apart from the rubber ring on the bobbin winder, which has perished but is easily replaceable.


Amazing sandwich plates, £3 for both. These are missing their teacups, but I got them for a great price, and this is a rare pattern! Unfortunately these plates sparked off a need to collect more pieces in this pattern, and this week these pieces arrived in the post!


They cost considerably more than £3. Tureen and serving platter!

Manchester Deco

This post is dedicated to Miss Matilda, as it features her combined loves of Manchester, art deco and Carole Lombard!

Some friends and I have been taking swimming lessons at a Bannatyne's health club, which is situated inside Sunlight House on Quay St. in Manchester, next door to the opera house. The basement pool is absolutely gorgeous - all original deco railings and tiles, an unusual shape, and a stunning domed stained glass ceiling looking up to daylight between the four sides of the building which provides much inspiration whilst practising my backstroke!

Unfortunately I can't find a picture anywhere of the pool, but here is a dramatic one of the building, taken by remote_release on flickr.



On the stairs by the pool there are pictures of its opening in 1933! It was 'Christened' with Champagne by Carole Lombard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

My photos here are a bit rubbish as the glass created flare, and I have just noticed that there are reflections of Natalie and Katherine who were standing behind me on the stairs, but there are some great vintage swimsuits and shoes to be seen! I especially love the diving man's swimwear in the last picture, with the swallow appliqué.





Sunlight house was completed in 1932 and was Manchester's tallest building at fourteen floors, it was originally intended to be forty storeys high but the city council blocked the plans. I imagine that if it had been built to the original plans, with soaring white towers and glittering glass, it would be regarded as a UK Art Deco landmark, rather than just a building of local interest.