Heeley Electric Palace, London Road

Here is a picture from June 2004, of the new Ponsfords furniture showroom which is built on the site of the former Heeley Electric Palace cinema

Opened August 1911 at Heeley bottom, London road. Right opposite Heeley station, which was a very busy station in those days. Also this area was in the middle of a community of hundreds of back to back houses. You couldn't concieve a more appropriate location for a cinema. The only disadvantage was the low position of the site, which was coupled ominously, with the close proximity of the regular flooding river sheaf.
This led to the organ console being housed in a metal tank, to protect it from the floods.

This Problem at the begginning of the next century is largely forgotten, as the council has finally improved the bend in the river underneath the heeley bridge.
The new furnature showroom, is larger than the cinema building it replaced, they started building it in 2001 and it opened in 2002. Now Ponsfords own even more of London road, they better keep their hands of the White lion.

You can see some historical pictures of the cinema by following
this link to sheffield library services Press H and search for Heeley

Summary - Heeley Electric Palace

Here is a picture of the back of the site from January 2000. As you can see it was taken up by CD Brammall Mazda dealership. The arrow indicates the entrance to the old Heeley Railway Station, which was directly accross the road from the cinema's entrance

Also, in the above photograph which looks north west toward the town centre, you can see directly above the car showroom, the heeley railway bridge. This bridge can be seen in many of the historic photos, featured in the link above. In it's heyday, the bridge had three spans, supporting 6 railway lines across London Road, but the outer ones have been dismantled decades ago and only the central one remains, supporting the twin lines which connect to the south of the main Sheffield Midland train station.

Thankyou For Visiting The Lost Cinemas Of Sheffield. Available at
http://www.thewookie.co.uk/cinemas/cinemas.html