Settle Victoria Hall reunited with 100-year-old film posters

A series of century-old cinema posters advertising long-forgotten films have been returned to the building the movies were originally shown in.

The collection of more than 60 posters was printed to advertise screenings between 1920 and 1923 at Settle Victoria Hall.

The papers spent much of their long life folded and stacked neatly in a shoebox before a volunteer at the venue acquired them and donated them back.

Archivist Josie Guthrie said: “They’re just such fragile, delicate things that have been kept for so long, all these years, and it’s just amazing that they have found their way back to us.”

One of the oldest music halls in the UK, Victoria Hall opened its doors in 1853 but operated as the town’s cinema between 1919 and 1939.

“By the end of World War One, the music halls were all closing down,” Ms Guthrie explained.

“They were vanishing left, right and centre because music halls were not really what people wanted anymore, cinema was all anybody wanted.”

Twenty-nine of the posters are from 1920 when the hall operated as The Picturedrome and a further 36 date back to 1923 when it was known as the Kirkgate Kinema.

They offer a glimpse into the history of cinema, advertising films such as 1919 silent romance The Knave of Hearts and war tale The Power of Right.

Just as films of today promote the most famous faces attached, the star power of the 20th Century was also used as a draw – names like James Knight and Alma Taylor often precede the film titles.

Later posters from the venue’s Kirkgate Kinema era boast screenings of Charlie Chaplin films and a serialised run of The Three Musketeers.

The posters even mention the “lost” 1921 film The Price of Possession, starring American actor Ethel Clayton, who has a star dedicated to her on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Grade II listed building, which says it is the world’s oldest music hall, has also functioned as a theatre, community meeting space and indoor market during the past 172 years.

“We’ve never closed our doors, never been anything but a music hall and entertainment venue,” Ms Guthrie said.

“As well as that claim to fame, it is a constant thread that runs throughout the life of Settle.

“Everyone really gravitates to this place as somewhere special that they remember from their childhood, and somewhere we all want to pass along to the next generation.”

Now the posters are safely back in the possession of the venue’s archive there are plans to create digital copies that could be reprinted in the future.

“There’s some absolutely fantastic pieces of history in here,” Ms Guthrie added.