Through the Round Window!

The full splendour of The Exchange is being witnessed for the first time, as close-up photos are released showing the beautiful architectural detail of the building. Drone photography funded by a grant from Boost; Lancashire’s Business Growth Hub shows the detail of the rose window. Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a…

BBC Northwest Tonight visits The Exchange

We’re delighted that The Exchange, Blackburn was selected for BBC Northwest Tonight’s coverage of the national Heritage Open Days festival, one of 5,000 events across the UK coordinated by the National Trust with funding from the players of Peoples Postcode Lottery. Presenter and Lancashire reporter, Beccy Barr interviewed Re:Source trustees, Dr Alastair Murdoch and Jill…

Fake Stabbing at the Apollo

From Lancashire Telegraph   FILM fans found themselves caught up in a horror movie when they went to Blackburn’s Apollo cinema. Staff at the town centre cinema shocked the audience by staging a mock stabbing to celebrate the opening of the film Scream 3. A fake screen was erected in front of the real one,…

Happy Birthday to The Exchange!

  It was a momentous day for Blackburn when the doors of the Cotton Exchange opened for the first time on 26th April 1865. 94 years later, the Essoldo cinema marked the anniversary and the screening of High Society with a full page history article in the Blackburn Times on 26 April 1957, along with…

CINEMA STAFF UP ON THE ROOF ESCAPE PRISON

CINEMA STAFF UP ON THE ROOF ESCAPE PRISON On this day in history, 17 August 1954, the Lancashire Evening Post reported on the court case of cinema staff prosecuted for stealing tiles off the roof of The Majestic Cinema at The Exchange, Blackburn.   ‘Fines totalling £33 were imposed at Blackburn today on cinema projectionists…

Sitting comfortably in the 1920s

Kinematograph Weekly June 1923 A supplement in the trade magazine contained a front page advert for furnishers Beck and Windibank Ltd in Birmingham, listing the Exchange Picture House as one of the many clients that they have secured in the few weeks since Easter that year. The company supplied 1644 chairs including 478 Mayfair tub…

Days of Wine and Roses

The basement and cellar spaces of The Exchange were once used by wine and spirit wholesalers, Addison & Co who also had premises on Church Street. Here’s an advert from the 1870s. In the more recent past, this was where families celebrated milestone birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas works dos at Tiggis Italian restaurant. Do you have…