The silent, empty Wakefield A.B.C cinema will never show a film to a packed house again. Every thing is still in place since it closed 11years ago.
It was on a later visit that this very strange thing happened in this cinema.
A late night in Wakefield saw me revisit the abandoned A.B.C cinema so my fellow explorers could capture the place before demolition. After getting filthy and stinking in Stanley Royd chapel, we headed for the nearest subway for a good wash up, food and drink. Suitably refreshed we headed for the cinema. I'd been here on an earlier visit and didn't need many shots. I decided to make myself comfortable on the stage and have a good sleep while the others did their thing. As my companions left the auditorium the heavy fire door banged behind them, the stressed out pigeons settled down for the night and silence once again returned to the dark empty cinema. Wakefield Cathedral had just chimed midnight and I was feeling tired.
Nicely nodding off I was rudely awakened by my mobile phone sometime later, It was one of my companions in a hushed voice telling me we were not in here alone. They had been hearing voices, footsteps and the sound of someone wading through the flood water. Can you see where we are? Several morse code flicks of the torch light indicated they were high up in the projection room. The door seems to be held shut by someone on the other side and we can't get out. I was then asked if I could go to there rescue.
Off I set on my own navigating the dark eerie corridors and stairs of the cinema to rescue my 3 friends, hoping not to meet this phantom explorer on the way. Thankfully I never met him. My companions were visibly shaken by the experience when I arrived. We never heard the phantom again that night, but it's these kind of things that make urbex dam scary at times but also lots of fun.
For more pictures and history with archive pictures of this intrepid
explore check out Behind the scenes of the Wakefield A.B.C
whiskey978, thermionic, soinsocal, ric03, and 33 other people added this photo to their favorites.
bambam4236 66 months ago | reply
you use one of those million+ candle jobs for this Phil? nice result.
phill.d 66 months ago | reply
I tried a few methods bambam. A flash gun, maglite but this 2 mill candle torch worked best on these shots i found as long as you didn't get any hot spots!
ric03 64 months ago | reply
This was my favourite cinema, went there as a kid all the time. Sad to see it like this!'ve seen all your photos on myspace too, you've done an excellent job of documenting its decline.
phill.d 64 months ago | reply
Thanks mate. Glad you enjoyed one last look at the place. I think work starts on demolition very soon.
MrMorg 60 months ago | reply
Great Shot Fella,
I would like you to Join our group and post this in there!
You are invited to the
Abandonded In Wakefield Group!
Missy Vix™ 52 months ago | reply
this is amazing! i would love to find an abandoned cinema, but the only one we have up here is in glasgow and its bolted tight! grrrrr...
phill.d 52 months ago | reply
Yeah. Tight access is a right royal pain in the butt :-)
We are lucky around here, two easy access cinemas within 20 miles of each other.
ian boyd 51 months ago | reply
really nice, good to see a ghostly wildlife documentary being shown too, elephants are definitely my favourite.
Paula Kechichian 49 months ago | reply
Outstanding shot!
James Nisbeck 48 months ago | reply
Great shot man. I love your story to accompany the image, it makes looking at the image all the more interesting
Norbert Löv 44 months ago | reply
Outstanding!
B.e.l.i.v.o 36 months ago | reply
Wow!!what a great pic and place!!
NightSnapper 23 months ago | reply
I think you were alone.
Any building that has been abandoned any length of time starts to make strange noises.
Water gets into the building and can often be heard drip drip dripping, the wind gets in throuh smashed windows and such like and can make things fall over and doors bang in the wind, birds and other wildlife take up residence inside the building and make noises doing what ever it is they do, all of witch is very normal.
Jugding by your photostream, you seem like no stranger to abandoned buildings yourself so I'm sure you know all this.
phill.d 23 months ago | reply
Oh yes I'm all too aware of the atmosphere in abandoned buildings, the sounds e.t.c.
We had a rather big shock at Cherry Knowle itself, some seriously keen security men throwing stones at the boarded windows and banging on them. They were nutters at that time, and caught quite a few. I'd not believe in any supernatural stuff if it wasn't for the fact my friends couldn't open the door they'd only just walked through.
Lee Bools 12 months ago | reply
I can see where I sat to see Independence Day
astralcadet 10 months ago | reply
The old ABC Regal, (as it originally was,) played an important part in my life...I saw films there in the 1950s with my parents and attended the ABC Minors matinee club screenings on Saturday mornings with my school chums. I later, in my teens, performed on the cinema's stage with my early groups, sometimes opening for movies. (One, I recall, was the 1960s 'Dr. Who and the Daleks' film with Peter Cushing as the Doctor.)
I made friends with the cinema's manager who used to let me have huge film posters when the films had finished their run. I used the plain white backs of them to paint posters for my groups. I still have these and they have been in a couple of exhibitions. (My painted posters, I mean. The film posters on the other side of the paper have sadly been defaced by the paint seeping through.)
I also have a few old black and white photo's of myself and the bands I was in performing on the cinema's stage in front of that big screen. Those performances were some of my first in a public space. I'm now 63 and have been a professional musician for almost 40 years with a long recording career and an international fanbase...but the ABC Regal was where it all began. I'm saddened to see what was once an architecturally beautiful building being abandoned to such terrible decay. I'll always remember it as a palace of dreams.