Stanley Royd Hospital Theatre

The Recreation Hall, as it was originally known, was like most such rooms in asylums, a multi-purpose room. It was built in 1859 primarily as a male patients' dining room and was first used, in incomplete state, for a Christmas party in 1859. It was finished in 1861. In jokey playbills for occasional entertainments it was called the 'Theatre Royal' but in the 1860s it probably had only an end platform, fitted up as required for theatricals. In 1893 the end bay of the room was demolished and the present, traditionally equipped theatre stage added. Interestingly, this re-incorporated the 1859 foundation stone.

Large halls, adaptable for dining, meetings, dances, theatricals and concerts were not uncommon in enclosed institutions, but the scale and quality of theatrical provision seen here is unusual and, as lunatic asylums throughout the country are abandoned, will become rarer.

As seen now, the theatre is a small element in a huge complex of asylum buildings dating from 1818 onwards. The room is flat-floored, more than 27.5m (90ft) long and nearly 15.25m (50ft) wide, in nine bays divided by piers and ceiling beams, each bay containing a window with an Italianate surround, alternate windows being pedimented. There were no fewer than six fireplaces, all in use, before central heating was installed. There is an end balcony. The capacity was said to be 700 and even today it might hold more than 400.

The proscenium arch, flanked by pass doors, has a three-centred arch and an enriched frame. There is a well constructed fly tower, providing all the facilities that might be expected in a small professional theatre of the period. Fly floors are provided at each side of the stage, and there is a timber grid with full flying height for hemp sets.

Attached to the underside of the fly floors are original timber upper grooves, being important survivors of this now virtually extinct system of scenic handling (cf. Normansfield Theatre in London). The grooves are divided into four bays on either side, each providing accommodation for three scenic flats. Only a few old flats survive, and these are not of significant importance or quality. Lower grooves are also present (possibly unique in Britain), forming guides, with no raised 'beds', the flats running on the stage floor itself. The proscenium is fitted with a later Hall Stage rolled safety curtain.

There is no evidence of any substage machinery having ever been in place. The area is allocated to dressing room space, as was often the practice in this type of theatre.

Like most great asylums this one has faced an extremely uncertain future since the 1990s, with plans to redevelop the hospital site as residential homes. In 2009 the theatre was sold to a Christian group, Destiny Church, who have sympathetically refurbished the theatre as their place of worship. For the time being it seems to be in safe hands.