Potholes and Potatoes
24 Goodgymers helped their local community in Sheffield
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Monday 22nd July 2019
Report written by Becky Greenwood
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On a hot summer evening the GoodGym Sheffield crew embarked on one of Sheffield’s rare flat(ish) running routes to return to the Abbeydale Picture House. We were helping CADS South Yorkshire, a charity which aims to restore the grade II listed building and relaunch it as a social and community arts venue. We met with the lovely Mark from CADS who took us through the tasks for the evening which included:
- Filling in the car park potholes
- Weeding around the picture house and in the wooden planters
- Litter picking
- Painting over graffiti on the outside of the building.
Splitting into groups we made speedy progress. Our clear up was well-needed with James claiming to have picked up 162 cigarette butts and a significant number of bin bags being filled. Caroline's resourcefulness saw kettles acting as watering cans for the picture house's shrubs. When our work was finished, Abbeydale Picture House looked neater and tidier. The walls of the building gleamed in the sun with its new coat of paint and the car park was a less holey place to be.
We headed to the local park for a ‘spuddy good’ time (Tom H). Following a successful potato harvest at Becky’s allotment, GoodGymmers competed in potato and spoon races and a fast-paced steal the potato game. Antonia, James and Chris’ team claimed victory and were crowned King Edwards.
We then returned to the Showroom to stretch and rehydrate.
Massive thanks for all the hardwork!
Session Leader
This task supported
One of the most Beautiful buildings in Sheffield.
The Abbeydale Picture Palace was opened by the Lord Mayor William Farewell Wardley on December 20th 1920, with the silent film The Call of the Road. Designed by the architects Dixon & Stienlet of North Shields and Newcastle-on-Tyne to work as a theatre as well as a cinema, it has a generous stage with a fly tower, the UK’s only remaining “iron” safety curtain, intact and in situ, with original 1950s period advertisements. The original classical proscenium was hidden by the existing plain arch when Cinemascope was installed in the 1950s, but otherwise the auditorium remains intact and the building is listed Grade II. Soon after closing its doors on the 5th July 1975, the building was taken over by Messrs A & F Drake as an office-equipment showroom. They traded until the early 1990s, and after some years of neglect the building was taken over by the Friends of the Abbeydale Picture House as a rehearsal and performance space for amateur theatre groups. When the Friends of the Abbeydale project came to an end in 2012, the building was bought at auction by Phil Robins. Since July 2015 it has been managed by Hand Of, a Sheffield based arts platform who organise a diverse range of cultural events.
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