Darlington
The New Hippodrome and Palace Theatre of Varieties opened on September 2, 1907, with a classic music hall bill, topped by "the Greatest of all Comediennes”, Miss Marie Loftus, but the real star of the show was the Italian impresario who had brought the theatre to life.
On that opening, there were two houses – 7pm and 9pm – with 2,000 people crammed into each, including 500 squeezed onto the wooden benches of the gallery with another 100 standing behind, watching what the local newspaper, The Northern Echo, called an “admirable” programme put together by Signor Rino Pepi to mark the launch of his third music hall.
Pepi was born in a village near Florence, in 1872, where his father was a well-to-do merchant, but the young man took to the stage. "One of his first appearances was before Queen Victoria in her castle at Florence, " says Pepi's obituary in the Barrow News. "The Queen was pleased with the young artiste and presented him with a diamond scarf pin." During the 1890s, Pepi became one of Europe's three greatest quick-change artistes - the theatrical fad of his day - playing to royalty.
Along the way, he met Mary, Countess de Rossetti, and fell in love. She was a widow who was half Italian and half Irish. She taught him English and, in early 1898, they came to London. For three months, Pepi topped the bill - there were 27 artistes beneath him - at the Pavilion (now the Trocadero shopping centre) in Piccadilly Circus. The programme made great play of his connection with Queen Victoria and described him as "Italy's Greatest Protean and Quick Change Artist".
"Signor Pepi's turn was a brilliant one," said the Echo's obituary of Pepi. "First he acted a 15-minute sketch unassisted, playing in all seven characters, male and female. He could sing soprano and tenor with equal ease, a feat which greatly enlivened his sketch." This sketch was called Love Is Always Victorious, and was so successful that after being the talk of the west end in London in the summer of 1898, it toured Europe for four years until September 1902, when Pepi found himself performing at the Star Theatre of Varieties in Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria.
Barrow is a most unlikely place for a 30-year-old Italian artiste of international repute to wind up, but the theatre was for sale. Pepi bought it and never again did Europe’s greatest quick change artist set foot on the stage – he went into theatre management. He spent a month doing up the Star and re-naming it the Tivoli, after the popular variety hall in London. Within two years, it was doing well enough for Pepi to take on the lease of the Blackpool Hippodrome, and then he built his own theatre, the Palace Theatre of Varieties, in Botchergate, Carlisle. It was designed by a Birmingham firm of theatre specialists, Owen and Ward, and opened on March 6, 1906. There was so much excitement about variety hall entertainment coming to Carlisle that police had to keep the queues in order.
Early in 1907, Owen and Ward and Pepi became involved in a project in Darlington, to build a hippodrome in Parkgate. Hippodromes were a specific type of music hall, popular for about five years towards the end of Edward VI’s reign. They took their name from the ancient Greek venue where horse-drawn chariot races took place, and they too specialised in animal-orientated entertainment: circuses, menageries and performing animals appeared at hippodromes, often with a water element to create a unique attraction.
It was to be Darlington’s second theatre, after the Theatre Royal in Northgate, and it coincided with the regeneration of Parkgate, which was regarded as too narrow to be the main approach to the railway station. Low grade shops and houses were demolished, and the first inkling that a variety theatre would take their place came in April 1905 when the North Star newspaper produced an artist's impression of an “opera house” planned for the Borough Road corner. This design was by Darlington’s pre-eminent architect George Gordon Hoskins who, as well as building colleges, the library and the King's Head Hotel in the town, had built the Victoria Hall Theatre in Sunderland. That, though, was more than 30 years earlier and Hoskins became ill having completed the first design – it shows a very different frontage, but it settled the interior layout of the theatre.
The project was picked up by a Newcastle architect, William Hope, whose repertoire included Middlesbrough's Grand Opera House (1903), Stockton Hippodrome (1905) and the King's Theatre, Sunderland (1907), but he too faded from the scene as Pepi and Owen and Ward took over. George F Ward, of Birmingham, seems to have been the principal architect of what one theatre historian has described as "riotous and wonderfully busy” façade. It is, he said, “a solidified fairground of shapes and motifs which proudly advertised the building's function as a hippodrome/music hall".
It took just seven months to build, and was opened on September 2, 1907. An opening night programme printed on silk still exists, detailing the acts that appeared with Miss Marie Loftus on that historic occasion.
"Vandinoff came on first, and received a well-deserved hearty reception," said the Echo. "He paints beautiful pictures rapidly - and well. The centrepiece - a floral design - was artistically executed, while the circular canvas was whirled round smartly.”
Next on was Mademoiselle Lumiere who danced in her electrical fairy grotto “while at the same time numerous exquisitely beautiful pictures of flowers, birds, butterflies, and so on were thrown on the folds of the ample skirt”. Then came Mezetti and Mora, the comedy triple bar performers, the Three Phydoras, in their musical eccentric novelty act (who were permitted to respond briefly to an encore) and Morny Cash, the Lancashire lad. Comedian Charlie Williams, who blacked up and had a strong Scottish accent, had the audience in stitches, “but”, said the Echo, “the most vociferous of the plaudits were reserved for Marie Loftus, a comedienne whose fame extends throughout the entire music hall world".
Marie Loftus (1857-1940) was known as "the Sarah Bernhardt of the Music-Halls", and although by the time she reached our Hippodrome, she was no spring chicken, still she had a full figure and an attractive voice. In her greasepaint under the gaslights, belting out her numbers, which ranged from naughtily risque to enormously sentimental, she was still capable of making a grown man swoon.
Even as Pepi and Ward stood on the stage taking the opening night plaudits and congratulations, they were planning their third joint venture: the New Hippodrome in Middlesbrough, a handsome terracotta-faced theatre with a capacity of 2,800, which opened on August 17, 1908. It is a splendid creation, although it now stands forlornly empty as the A66 dual carriageway flyover whizzes past its gutter level.
Pepi wasn’t much of a businessman – it may be that he persevered with Darlington because it was ideally located so that he could indulge another of his passions for racecourses. He spent £22,000 fitting up the Middlesbrough hippodrome, but it never turned him a penny, and he sold it just eight months later for £12,400. He may even have had to give away Queen Victoria’s diamond scarf pin to cover his debts, as it is believed to still be on Teesside, and he was also forced to off-load the Palace in Carlisle because it wasn’t paying.
But Pepi was undaunted. On December 6, 1909, he opened another Hippodrome in Bishop Auckland - "a most handsome and commodious building," according to The Northern Echo – which he followed, on September 21, 1910, with his fourth purpose-built variety temple, the "very fine" Shildon Hippodrome in Byerley Road.
Yet for all Pepi's optimism, this was not a good time to be building variety halls. Variety was yesterday's entertainment. "The flicks" - films - were the big draw, and cinemas were springing up all over the place. Pepi couldn't make either of his south Durham venues pay, and his involvement in Shildon ended after a little more than a year when the Bishop Auckland Hippodrome also went bust in 1911.
At the outbreak of the First World War, our hero owned only two theatres: Darlington and Barrow. Then, on December 7, 1915, the Countess died at their modest mid-terrace home in Barrow. She was only 46.
They had made an exotic couple. He, the Italian master of stagecraft; she, the aristocrat of continental descent. He, in his black top hat and black flowing coat; she, in her ballgown carrying her favourite Pekinese in her arms (the dog was 11 when it died and its ghost haunted the theatre until the 1970s when a doglike skeleton was removed from a wall and given a proper burial out the back).
Pepi kept on with Barrow until 1924, by which time film was overpowering. Pepi's diary remains at the Civic. You can feel his disappointment as he crosses out the name of a show he has booked and, in angry black ink, replaces it with the single word "Pictures".
He, though, raged against the dying of the light and he bowed out with a magnificent coup de grace, a truly theatrical flourish. In his pocketbook, in his expansive hand, he wrote in his customary black ink: "Madame Pavlova's matinee. Thursday Nov 17/27."
There have been few more famous ballerinas than Anna Pavlova (certainly no other ballerina has had a meringue-based dessert named after them). All around the world she had legions of fans, of pavlovtzi, who dissolved into raptures about her Dying Swan.
Much of Darlington turned out to greet her, and the tickets, priced at a premium, were snapped up. No greater name can have trodden the Parkgate boards. But Pepi wasn't there to see her. He was at home in Tower Road, his fragile hold on life slipping away as the swan faded in the follow spot. Pavlova danced at 2.30pm. Pepi died of cancer of the left lung later that night. He was 55.
His funeral was attended by 200 people two days later in St Augustine's Roman Catholic Church, and his body was transported by motor hearse over the A66 to Barrow to be buried next to his beloved countess in his evening dress.
Somewhere over the Pennines fog closed in. In the darkness before dawn, the hearse and a couple of cars pulled up - perhaps in a lay-by, perhaps in a pub car park - and waited for the mist to lift.
It is this break in Pepi's last journey that has prompted the many ghost stories about him. It was as if he were reluctant to leave Darlington and its Hippodrome, which is why his ghost haunted his one bedroom apartment after it was turned into a dressing room, and he mysteriously appeared in the royal box stage right to cast a critical eye on the acts.
In March 2016 it was announced that Darlington Civic Theatre had received a confirmed £4.5m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to transform and regenerate the Grade II Listed building to its former glory.
The grant forms a key part of the ambitious £13.7m project that will deliver a restored Edwardian theatre with 21st century facilities and expanded artistic programme. The theatre closed at the end of May 2016 to allow work to begin and will reopen in the autumn of 2017 with a new name – Darlington Hippodrome.
The project will include the restoration of the distinctive exterior of the theatre and the beautiful Edwardian auditorium, a modern new entrance and promenade gallery, celebrating its heritage, the creation of a stunning vaulted function room in the former water tower, as well as improved seating with more leg room and disabled access, including two lifts providing access to all levels both front and back of house.
There will also be an increase in seats to 1000, which together with improved back stage facilities for touring companies, will enable larger shows to be accommodated. A new education centre and improved public spaces will support a vibrant new range of daytime learning and engagement activities.
The remaining money needed for the project will be raised through a restoration ticket levy and a programme of fundraising, which includes applications to trusts and foundations, corporate sponsorship opportunities, as well as a seat naming campaign and other fundraising initiatives.
www.darlingtonhippodrome.co.uk/about-us/heritage/our-hist...
Darlington
Holy Trinity
1836-8 by Anthony Salvin. Chancel with vestry and organ chamber added 1867 by J. Ross of Darlington (extended E in 1900 with new NE vestry).
MATERIALS: Coursed sandstone. Slate roofs laid in diminishing courses.
PLAN: Nave, chancel, N and S aisles, N tower/porch, NE vestry, SE organ chamber.
EXTERIOR: The church stands on raised ground above a pavement: there are steps up to the striking tower which is a focus of the show front (N). The style is Early English. The chancel has a graded, triple lancet E window with hoodmoulds with toothed moulding and carved capitals. This is said to be the 1830s window recycled each time the E end was extended. Buttresses divide the aisles into four bays, each of which has equal height lancets, arranged in groups of four, the outer ones being blind. The aisles have coped parapets above stringcourses. The W ends of the nave and aisles are treated as a single, wide, gabled composition with a plain parapet to the gable. There is a W window comprising three equal-height lancets above which is a circular window: either side of this window arrangements there are buttresses marking off the aisle, each of which has a single lancet W window. The tower is of two stages with angle buttresses with gables and copings. In the N face is a doorway in a shallow gabled projection with stone slate copings to the gable: it has a moulded doorway with shafts with bell capitals; a two-leaf 19th-century door with decorative strap hinges. The tower has a clock face in a round stone frame on the N and large double-chamfered belfry lancets, three to each face and embellished with shafts below a plain parapet. There is a projecting SE polygonal stair turret with a pyramidal stone roof. The NE transeptal vestry has angle buttresses with deep set-offs, two-light lancet windows and an octofoil in the gable. The vestry has a stack with a stone shaft. There is a lean-to choir vestry to the E. The organ chamber has trefoil-headed lancet windows to the S with carved heads.
INTERIOR: The walls are plastered and whitened. The dominant feature is the five-bay arcading between the nave and aisles with round piers and almost semi-circular double hollow-chamfered arches. There is no clerestory and the arcades rise close to the wall-plate. There is a roll-moulded chancel arch on short shafts, the capitals being carved with acanthus leaves. The nave has a tie-beam and king-post and strut roof with one tier of purlins. The main trusses are arch-braced, the braces carried on stone shafts. The nave is thought to have had a flat ceiling originally. The chancel roof is arch-braced with cusped, pierced braces on moulded stone corbels: the roof is boarded behind the trusses with horizontal boards. Encaustic tiles are used to floor the choir. The sanctuary has a marble floor which is part of a refitting of 1917-18.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The stalls have poppyhead ends and were installed in 1917-18. The panelling formerly on the E wall of the chancel and the timber, panelled reredos with blind tracery and coving have been moved to the W end. The reredos incorporates a tempera painting of 1918, signed by John Duncan. The font is made from polished Frosterley marble and has a square bowl with chamfered corners on a stem of four shafts. The timber polygonal pulpit with traceried sides dates from 1898 and has a stone stem. The nave benches were installed in 1909 and have curved shouldered ends with blind trefoils. At the W end the three-light window is filled with glass by Wailes. The E window has impressively large figures and is by Daniel Cottier (1838-91), the pioneer of modern stained glass in Scotland. Two extremely fine windows in the N aisle are by Edwin Cook and are said to be the only stained glass he designed. Wall monuments include a large inscription panel in a stone frame to John Wood (d 1843), signed by J Day of Sunderland, with a bust in a niche above the frame.
HISTORY: Holy Trinity was built as a chapel of ease to St Cuthbert's church to meet the needs of the expansion of Darlington after the arrival of the railway. It was assigned a parish in 1843. Plans for the church were in place at least by June 1834 when application for a grant was made to the Incorporated Church Building Society. The foundation stone was laid on 4 October 1836. At that time it was expected that the church would have 1,010 seats of which 600 would be free. The final cost was £3,404. The architect, Anthony Salvin (1799-1881), was a significant figure in the late Georgian and early Victorian Gothic Revival. Born in Worthing, he was a pupil of a little-known architect named John Paterson (d 1832) and worked in the office of John Nash. He set up in independent practice in 1828 and early on showed his ability to create buildings in an impressively authentic medieval style. He is also well known for a range of country house work. At Holy Trinity he demonstrates a faithfulness to medieval Gothic that was unusual for its time. Salvin's biographer, Jill Allibone, says the church `was quite the best thing Salvin had done up to this date.'
Various changes too place during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1867 a chancel with a transeptal organ chamber and vestry was added by the local architect, J Ross. This was further extended c1898. The seating was renewed in 1883 and again in 1909 when the flat ceiling over the nave was removed, this work being supervised by the Durham architect C Hodgson Fowler (contractor R T Snaith and Son). The chancel was refitted in 1917-18.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Holy Trinity, Darlington, church is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * It is of considerable interest, even though altered later, for its historical importance as an early example of an Early English Gothic Revival church which follows medieval precedent reasonably faithfully. * It is the best church by the nationally important architect Anthony Salvin in his career up until the time it was built. * It retains considerable amounts of fixtures from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including an impressive font and three very fine stained glass windows, one by Daniel Cottier and two by Edwin Cook. * Its building reflects Darlington's rapid growth at this time, and the desire to provide an imposing place of Anglican worship.
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1121226
