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The Gaiety's 'Belfast Roof', Douglas

Date(s): 1899 (?)

Place made: Gaiety Theatre (Douglas)

Scope & Content: Photograph possibly of the 1899 renovation of the Pavilion by Frank Matcham which resulted in The Gaiety Theatre and Opera House that opened on 16 July 1900.

Workers perch precariously on the girders in the top left.

Belfast Roof is the name given to a barrel vaulted roof formed from iron sections bolted together into hoops which are then reinforced and faced with laminated wood.

'The Gaiety Theatre originally opened in 1893 as a large pavilion designed by WJ Rennison on the shell of the original Villa Marina. It operated as a music hall, but soon closed down. Frank Matcham was commissioned to redesign the building as a theatre and used builder Jonas Binns of Halifax in association with Alexander Gill, the entrepreneurial Douglas developer and builder. In 1900 it was reopened as a grand Opera House and Theatre.'
(Tutt, Patricia, 'An introduction to the architecture of the Isle of Man', 2013, p.171.)

#imuseumtheatre
#imuseumarchitecture

Language: eng

Extent: overall: 25 cm x 30 cm

Item name: photograph

Collection: Photographic Archive

Level: ITEM

ID number: PG/5971/1

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