Theatre

Only the front wall facing Stafford Street and the left hand wall (i.e. stage right) facing Cross Street, can be readily inspected. The remaining external walls are obscured by other properties.

It is over 150 years since the theatre was used for live entertainment and much alteration has occurred since. It is likely that all the windows on the Cross Street wall are later insertions. There is a bricked up entrance which may or may not be original and the faint outlines of two bricked up windows nearer Stafford Street.

The frontage appears part of a terraced line of properties and has not the appearance of those Georgian theatres which stood in isolation. One suspects that two small windows at the very top of the front may be original. A plaque fixed by the Market Drayton Civic Society on the left hand side of the front wall reads: ‘Market Drayton Theatre. 1792. Built under the patronage of Sir Corbet Corbet. In 1811 it was licensed for an annual season of sixty days. About 1840 a boy actor was killed when a gun went off after it was dropped on the stage. In 1843 it was still in partial use.’

The building is at present divided longitudinally into two shops, one currently vacant and the other used by a firm of plumbers. The most interesting feature is to be found in a passageway approximately seventeen feet from the rear stage wall. This affords ingress to the buildings and properties on the other side but is unlikely to be original as one would expect such access to have been available around the rear of the theatre. The visible timbers in the ceiling in this passageway may offer clues to the internal construction. It was not possible to enter the building, but such dimensions as could be checked or surmised appear not dissimilar to those found at Richmond, Yorkshire.

The substantial remains of this theatre could reward detailed survey and expert interpretation.