Hippodrome

The Hippodrome once stood on Henblas Street in Wrexham, North Wales, part of a larger block called Birmingham Square. Before it became a theatre and cinema, the site held a roofed market with fifty-two shops, known as Union Hall or the Public Hall. A fire in 1906 destroyed the Public Hall after starting in a sweet factory next door. The blaze spread quickly, helped by strong winds, but firefighters saved nearby streets with their new steam engine. The disaster left the block in ruins, though the print works next to the factory collapsed under the weight of heavy presses. A new building, the New Opera House & Public Hall, opened in 1909 with a curved balcony and Baroque details. Renamed the Hippodrome Theatre in 1911, it became a cinema in 1920 and hosted films and variety shows for decades. The Flanagan family ran it as the Cine Variety House in the 1960s, showing films and live acts before it turned into a two-screen cinema. By 1998, it closed for good after failing to secure first-run films like Titanic. The empty building was bought in 2004 for retail plans, but a fire in 2008 gutted it just days after its manager died. Demolition followed in 2009, though a restored Art Deco light from the ceiling now hangs in Tŷ Pawb. In 2022, Wrexham Council bought the site, and in 2023 actor Rob McElhenney proposed a memorial park there for his co-owner Ryan Reynolds. Plans aim to link the old Hippodrome site with nearby markets to create a new quarter in the town.