Sitting within the metropolitan district of Bradford in West Yorkshire, Manningham is a council ward with deep roots in industrial England. Its name is thought to come from the Old English Maegeninghām, meaning ‘village connected with Maegen’. The ward recorded a population of 19,983 in the 2011 Census, reflecting its standing as one of Bradford’s more densely settled inner areas.
Industrial Character and Community History
Manningham’s streets tell the story of Bradford’s wool trade era. Mill buildings, imposing wool merchants’ houses, and long rows of back-to-back terraced housing all survive from a period when the district was a hub for industrial workers. Manningham was historically Bradford’s Jewish quarter, and it later developed a German community, many of whom eventually moved to the Heaton area of the city. From the mid-twentieth century onward, a growing South Asian population settled in Manningham, reshaping its social and cultural character considerably.
A Surprisingly Rich Cinema History
Few areas of comparable size can claim as layered a cinema history as Manningham. In 1912, the Manningham Kinematograph Company opened the 519-seat Oak Lane Picture House on Oak Lane, in a building that had previously been a horse tramshed used by the Bradford Tramways and Omnibus Co Ltd. It was renamed the Oriental in 1920, gained Western Electric sound by 1931, and underwent a partial rebuild in 1936-37 that added a new roof, balcony, and enlarged screen. A Hammond organ was installed but removed at the outbreak of the Second World War. A CinemaScope screen with stereophonic sound followed in 1955, though the cinema closed just three years later in 1958 and was eventually demolished to make way for a mini-supermarket.
A second and larger venue, the purpose-built 1,250-seat Marlboro Cinema, opened in 1921 at the junction of Carlisle Road and Carlisle Street. Designed by architect T Patrick in red brick with a white tiled entrance and a domed tower, it was owned by Milton Moulson’s Marlboro Cinema Company. Sound films arrived by 1930, and the cinema passed through several owners before closing in 1962. It then operated as the Liberty Cinema from 1962 to 1982, showing Asian films for the local South Asian community. After a major refurbishment in 2000 by Asian Cine Ltd, it reopened with 400 seats showing Bollywood films, before a fire in 2001 damaged part of the building, which was subsequently rebuilt as an Asian Marriage Hall and function room. A third venue, the Sangeet Cinema, opened in 1970 in a converted former Methodist church off Carlisle Road. That building also housed numerous Asian businesses and a smaller occasional-use screen called the Naz. The Sangeet closed in 1980, and a series of fires during the 1980s left the building beyond recovery.