The rise and fall (and possible collapse) of Abbeydale Picture House

A venue in this iconic building has failed before - what makes things different now?

Morning readers — and welcome to this Thursday’s Tribune.

Before we get stuck into today’s story — about the iconic Abbeydale Picture House in Nether Edge — we have some important housekeeping to get out of the way.

On Saturday, our prices are going up, to £8.95 a month, or £89 for a year. This is to help us cover the many costs that have gone up over the three years since The Tribune started, and we believe reflects the value of the extra articles you get as a member.

If you’ve been meaning to get a subscription for a while, this is your last chance to bag a year’s subscription at the amazing price of £70 (just £5.83 a month). Just press the button below and click “annual”.

---

Mini-briefing

🚽 Last year, Yorkshire Water spilled sewage into Sheffield’s rivers on 4,781 occasions, an increase of around a third compared to the year before. More concerningly, the data released by the Environment Agency shows that the total number of hours in which sewage was spilling increased by more than 50% — representing more than 18,000 hours in total. According to Simon Ogden, chair of the Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust, told NowThen this is likely only a portion of the pollution that ran into our rivers last year.

👗 Staff at boohoo’s immense warehouse in Tinsley are bracing themselves for a round of job losses, which the Manchester-based company has described as the “regrettable” result of a £150million investment in efficiency. A spokesperson for the fast fashion brand told the Star: “We can understand this is a difficult time for those impacted and we are providing them with all the support we can." You can read our previous reporting on what it’s like to work there here.

🛑 A 73-year-old who held a pro-Hamas sign at a protest outside Sheffield City Hall last October has been ordered to pay a £1,000 fine. Michael Rabb, a US veteran originally from Colorado, carried a sign that read "Stand With Hamas, End Israel, Free Palestine," which reportedly caused "distress" among organisers of the protest. Despite leaving the protest when asked, Rabb later returned and was then arrested. Earlier this week, he told a court his arrest was an attempt to shut down dissent and told the judge he had no plan to pay the fine.

🏺 This year, the Sheffield Ceramics Festival returns for its tenth year, showcasing the work of potters and ceramic artists from the Sheffield area and beyond. The event began in Meersbrook Park but, since 2021, has taken place in the Kelham Island Museum. This year, around 50 artists will be displaying their work on both Saturday and Sunday — find out more here and purchase your ticket for £2 here.

---

The rise and fall (and possible collapse) of Abbeydale Picture House

By Victoria Munro

Every day that Howard Greaves enters his antique shop on Abbeydale Road, he walks in the shadow of the biggest financial disaster of his life. The Abbeydale Picture House is an unquestionably beautiful Grade II-listed building in Nether Edge, so grand it was known as the “Picture Palace” when it first opened as a cinema in the early 1920s. Greaves, a fan of historic buildings in general, has adored it for decades. “If I won the lottery, I would buy it tomorrow,” he tells me, more than once.

I can readily believe him, given he’s already paid dearly for his devotion. In 2003, Greaves joined the committee of the Friends of Abbeydale Picture House, a charity that bought the long-closed cinema with the help of a sizable loan from Yorkshire Bank and reopened it as a theatre and venue. Before long, however, the relationship between the so-called friends had soured. Greaves and another committee member, Ken Ellis, eventually parted ways with the charity — both say they were exhausted by the constant infighting.

Unfortunately for them, the pair had agreed to act as the guarantors for the Yorkshire Bank loan issued to the charity’s subsidiary company, Abbeydale Picture House Leisure Ltd. In March 2010, at a time when Greaves claims he and Ellis were in talks about rejoining the committee, the charity abruptly liquidated this company, leaving them liable to pay back the almost £130,000 still owed. It took him the better part of a decade to raise his half, Greaves tells me, chipping away at the debt at a rate of £160 a week. 

The charity, meanwhile, continued for another two years, having set up a new subsidiary company the month before liquidating its old one. “A lot of people do it: go bust, dump the debts and start over,” Greaves says. The charity’s accounts from that year state that it was necessary for this old company “to cease operations to avoid trading illegally” because it could not afford its mortgage repayments. The new company, it adds at the time, had acquired the business from the liquidator and would Gift Aid its profits to the charity.

“I could have got very bitter about it,” Greaves insists, when I visit him one afternoon at Dronfield Antiques, “but sometimes you just have to wipe your mouth.” I’m not convinced he’s as sanguine as he claims — although I wouldn’t be either, in his position. At one point in our conversation, he fetches a faded clipping of a letter he wrote to the National Operatic and Dramatic Association magazine in 2011, which goes into blistering detail about the alleged failings of other members of the committee, some of whom are mentioned by name. At the time, he printed it out, mounted it on coloured card and stuck it in the window of his shop, which made some of the people mentioned go “ballistic”.

The Abbeydale Picture House. Credit: The Tribune

We’re not speaking because I’m fascinated by decade-old drama — although I am — but because the Abbeydale Picture House seems to be at yet another crossroads in its more than century-long history. These days a new charity, Creative Arts Development Space (CADS), is hoping to run a successful venue in the building. Like its predecessor, it is finding this a complicated task. 

In late February, CADS announced they were abruptly closing the doors of their venue, unable to foot the bill for repair work to the ceiling, which they say is in danger of imminent collapse. A few weeks later, CADS founder Stephen Rimmer announced a far more positive development — the government had agreed to give their project £300,000 in funding. The Abbeydale Picture House, according to a number of headlines, was saved.

This relief may prove a little pre-emptive, something Rimmer’s statement after the funding was awarded seems keen to highlight. “While this grant is undoubtedly a huge leap forward in our mission to revive The Abbeydale Picture House, it's important to recognise that this is the first step of many to fully restore the building to its former glory,” he wrote. After all, a large portion of this money — if not all of it — will go towards simply buying the building, which the current landlord Phil Robins purchased in 2012 for £150,000, the equivalent of almost £197,000 today. Once CADS owns the building, it will be in a not-dissimilar position to the Friends of Abbeydale Picture House in the early 2000s. Can it succeed, where this previous charity failed?