Adelina Patti Theatre (Craig Y Nos)

A small theatre building added by Dame Adelina Patti and her husband, the tenor Nicolini, to an existing neo-Gothic house. The most ambitious of the few private theatres in Britain, and still intact. Like Chatsworth, it also functioned as a ballroom but has a proper stage with fly tower, and also original machinery and scenery, including a spectacular act drop of Patti as Semiramide, attributed to Hawes Craven. The stage has a slight negative rake. The small, rectangular auditorium has a coved and panelled ceiling and the walls are richly articulated by giant, fluted Corinthian columns. The proscenium, flanked by columns, has a central pedimented tablet with the names of Verdi, Rossini and Mozart. There is no fixed seating. The flat floor can be tilted downwards towards the stage to form a raked auditorium and a sunken orchestra pit opened up. The main house was for many years used as a hospital, later converted to a hotel.

The theatre continues to be used at intervals for performances of opera, however the fabric has deteriorated over time and some is in a poor state of repair.

This is one of the most important private theatres in Britain and deserves exceptional effort to see it restored and brought back to fuller use.