Heywood & Hopwood June 2016

From the
archives
The Carlton
A
Ballroom
The 1930’s was a decade of change in the United Kingdom and Rochdale was no
exception. Cinema attendance was booming and dancing was all the rage with
dances at the Pioneers Ballroom, occasionally at the Town Hall and many others in
many church halls and school rooms.
In August 1935 there was a dance at the Ambulance Drill Hall featuring Tee Varnum and his band (admission
2/-), at the Kings Hall in Littleborough or at the Lakeside Pavilion at Hollingworth Lake. It was a decade
of widening cultural expectations and the town contributed to this by opening, in 1934, one of the best
dance halls in the North West – the Carlton on Great George Street, just off Drake Street, the Observer
noting at the time that ‘Rochdale will possess a ballroom the modernity .. unsurpassed by any other dance
hall in the provinces.’
The building, which previously had been an old wool scouring mill belonging to Kelsall & Kemp, was
redesigned by J E Stott of Todmorden, the architects who also developed the Riviera complex in Norden.
The front of the mill was pulled down and a façade and entrance re-designed in a minimal Art Deco style
typical of the 1930’s.
Embassy Amusements Limited took on the management and refurnished the Carlton in the latest style.
From the entrance there was a box office, cloakrooms and a café with an ‘up-to-date Milk Bar’ open to the
public all day. On the upper floor on three sides there was a balcony which accommodated 250 to 300
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