Chilling corridors

As if there isn't enough to be worried about in these days, some people are phobic to empty corridors, especially in hotels.
It's all the fault of The Shining, the horror film set in an empty hotel: ghosts (and worse) keep appearing at turns in the vacant corridors. 
I suppose the horror is enhanced because what should be busy areas are disturbingly unpopulated.

 

In this deserted cinema, I even felt a frisson of something myself...

Stafford's Sandonia theatre

The Sandonia - `which was a theatre then a cinema then a bingo hall then a snooker club - is down a back street (Sandon Rd - hence the Sandonia's name) in Stafford, where its grandiose facade stands out among the terraced houses.  When it opened in the 1920s, it must have been a red letter day in those poor streets.

For the last twelve years, it has stood empty, and of its glory only this facade remains. The inside was stripped some time ago, so I guess the Art Deco features inside are barely surviving.

Picture House, Stafford

The ‘Picture House’ pub in Stafford is a lovely example of a chain doing a surprisingly thoughtful job in taking an old building and refurbishing it sensitively.

This Art-Deco building was, until fairly recently, the town’s cinema, but the new owners have kept a lot of the features – including the period glass signage out the front - which is in this photo.

The inside, ie what was the huge old auditorium, whose floor is on an incline down to the bar below (where the screen would have been), is a cinema-goer’s delight - being full of old cinema posters and silver photos of stars of old Hollywood.

Link:  Picture House, Stafford