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3 days ago
Friday, September 04, 2009
Broadway Theatre
Another of the great lost treasures of South London, the Broadway Theatre, New Cross, opened in 1897, became a cinema in 1911 and was demolished in the 1960s. The architect was WGR Sprague, who also designed the still standing Notting Hill Coronet. It was situated on New Cross Road/Deptford Broadway, opposite Deptford High Street, on the corner of Tanners Hill. It seems to have been generally known as the Broadway Theatre, New Cross rather than the Deptford Broadway Theatre. And you could get the tram there too!
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I've oft' been confused about the location of the theatre, and looking at those pictures still can't imagine exactly how it fitted in with the still-existing buildings at the bottom of Tanners Hill. I'll have to have a look again later. I have a 1908 postcard of Deptford Broadway looking in the other direction, with the trams pictured, which I haven't seen a copy of online anywhere - fancy a look if I can find a scanner?
Thanks E, in the bottom picture the building opposite is supposed to be on the corner of the High Street, making the Theatre directly opposite - is that right?
If you have another picture that would be great - maybe email it and I will post it.
So within the space of 18 months, New Cross was graced with two theatres (almost opposite one another) by the two top British theatre architects of the day, WGR Sprague and his one-time boss Frank Matcham: Sprague's Broadway Theatre (opened Dec 1897) and Matcham's New Cross Empire (opened Aug 1899). Proud days!
Not to mention, from the later Art Deco period, the Deptford Odeon
I think was where the sub-Post Office is, a row of shops set back behind a wide area of pavement, with a mural on the wall of the next building west.
The Deptford Marbles, apparently.
http://tinyurl.com/lw6tmh
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