York Historic Environment Record

Electric Cinema; now shop: boundary wall attached to rear building. 1911, incorporating late C19 building at rear; remodelled 1957. Boundary wall medieval, C17, C18 and C19. MATERIALS: cream-brown mottled brick in English garden wall bond, part rendered, with cinema front of glazed tile and faience; rear building of orange-cream mottled brick in English garden wall bond, with lower courses of orange-red brick: slate roofs, with brick stack to rear building.

EXTERIOR: full-height cinema front, of 3 unequal bays, treated as form of Palladian arch in Ionic order. Central arch is ribbed elliptical hemi-dome on columns with moulded bases on tall pedestals, beneath moulded modillion cornice hood, returned over flanking arches. Frieze above rises to segmental pediment terminated by volutes and capped with enriched moulded coping with ball and pedestal finial: frieze filled with moulded mask and garlands and swags of fruit. Shopfront behind cinema front has glazed double doors between arcaded with plate glass windows. Rear building: 2-storey, 3-window front to Black Horse Passage: openings altered. Boundary wall attached to north-west, approximately 4 metres high and 30 metres long.

INTERIOR: of shop: wall pilaster strips moulded with drops of flowers and musical instruments beneath impost band and plain frieze support moulded cornice. Ceiling panelled with flat plaster ribs, some enriched with moulded fruits.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: boundary wall red brick on lower courses of magnesian limestone.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the Electric Cinema was the first cinema in York. Boundary wall attached to rear building incorporates remnants of former precinct wall of Carmelite Friary, suppressed 1538.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 50).
Listing NGR: SE6057251769

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005

NMR Information

BF060561 THE ELECTRIC THEATRE, YORK File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued.

On-Site Archaeology, 2015, Electric Cinema, 19-22 Fossgate (Unpublished document). SYO1786.

Colin Briden, 2015, Former Electric Cinema, 19-22 Fossgate BLDG ASS (Unpublished document). SYO1787.

On-Site Archaeology, 2016, 19-22 Fossgate (Unpublished document). SYO1795.

On-Site Archaeology, 2018, 19-22 Fossgate EXC (Unpublished document). SYO2150.

NMR, 2019, NMR data (Digital archive). SYO2214.