Empress Cabaret Club (Stockport)

The Empress Cabaret Club was in Manchester Road, Heaton Chapel, north Stockport, Cheshire and had opened as The Empress Cinema on Friday, May 6, 1938 with 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' staring Leslie Howard.

 

The cinema was designed by J. Brian Cutts.

 

There was a field called Ash Farm, a farmhouse and field at the junction of Manchester Road and Denby Lane, owned by one Harry Hitchen. His ambitious grandson reckoned that it was time Heaton Chapel had a picture house, so on Friday, May 6, 1938 the seven-hundred-seater Empress Cinema opened.   

 

The Empress Cinema closed on Saturday, April 18, 1959 with 'Rock-A-By-Baby' staring Jerry Lee Lewis and opened as The Express Cabaret Club on Wednesday, December 9, 1959.

 

Only part of the cinema was opened and the club was run by Manchester City footballer Keith Marsden (b. Thursday, October 4, 1934, Matlock, Derbyshire, England d. 1986, South Africa in a car crash).

 

In 1967 the club closed for a while after a fire.