Palace

The Huddersfield Palace of 1909 was a music hall in the best tradition built to the designs of Horsfall & Sons and decorated by J Binns & Sons of Halifax. The original façade was in three bays of three storeys, the narrower outer bays being treated as towers rising one storey above the centre, the left hand tower having a steep slated roof, the right hand with a rather under-sized copper drum and dome. The facings were brick with stone dressings with an iron canopy across the full width of the front. A queue shelter returned on the right hand flank. The auditorium had the peculiar feature of a pit area substantially steeper in rake than the stalls. A bioscope box was included in the design. This building was internally destroyed by fire in January 1936 and was rebuilt for reopening at Easter 1937. The faience-faced front of 1937 faintly echoed the original, being also in three bays, the centre with a group of four tall windows over the entrance, extending up to a deep cornice projection with a blind attic above. The right hand bay is slightly advanced, rising as a stubby tower with little knobs suggesting battlements. Despite the change of use and the filling in of the tall windows, the exterior remained little altered. The Palace became the Palace Casino in 1962 and Palace Bingo Hall in 1978 before becoming the Chicago Rock Cafe and finally the Society nightclub. The Chicago Rock Cafe was constructed largely within the auditorium. The stage was opened out but the fly galleries remained. The orchestra pit was boarded over and the dressing rooms bricked up (originally seven single and two chorus dressing rooms). The Palace lay empty for several years before being partially demolished and converted into student apartments in 2015, retaining the facade.