Your Heritage
Date awarded
Location
Mill Hill & Moorgate
Applicant
Thwaites Empire Theatre Trust Ltd
Award Given
£46900
The Empire Cinema in Blackburn was one of the first purpose-built cinemas in the UK.
This project celebrated the centenary by capturing memories of cinema goers and the story of how it was saved by the community in the 1970s to become Thwaites Empire Theatre.
A book was produced from these oral histories, along with a piece of community theatre based on the book. This was performed at Thwaites Empire by members of local theatre groups and toured around local schools.
Audiences were invited to viewings of old black and white film footage from the archives of film production pioneers Mitchell and Kenyon, who founded their company 'Norden' in Blackburn in 1897. Original material has been stored with Lancashire Record Office and the North West Sound Archive.