Dispossessed Demon

My visits today took me past the former Grand Picture Theatre on Manchester Road, Huddersfield. I used to work opposite this place between 1998 and 2006.

This once handsome building, designed by Clifford Hickson, opened on 4 March 1921 and eight years later, became the third cinema in town to show the new 'talking pictures'.

It closed in 1957 and was converted into a nightclub and later into a disco (Eros and Ivanhoes). On Christmas Day 1977 it was the venue for two concerts by the Sex Pistols - the evening concert being their last ever British appearance.

The building was reputed to be haunted by a former projectionist whose ghostly footsteps were heard in the area of the old balcony, doors mysteriously opened and breaking glass was heard in the building. On one occasion, bouncers at the night club called the police because they thought someone was inside the building.

The demon was dispossessed in the 1990s when the auditorium was demolished and a supermarket built on the site.

Only the facade remains. But maybe the footsteps of the ghost can be heard in the aisles of the supermarket?