Friday, 2 February 2024

Malt Cross

16 St James's St, Nottingham NG1 6FG

http://www.maltcross.com/

01159411048

I been past this place, and now I want to go, and see it, inside, the Roebuck is just the other side.

It Sound roasts seem very popular, it very much a place I want to see.

For my own notes, I copy some thing from a web site.

Described as an “Architecturally stunning Victorian music hall” by The Guardian, and “A novelty… one of the country’s few surviving Victorian music halls” by The Telegraph, Malt Cross is a place where the local community loves to gather.

We are a pub situated right at the city centre of Nottingham passionate about quality food, award winning ales, an enviable range of quality drinks, the arts, great music, and lively events.

The reason our doors open in the morning is to make the lives of the people of Nottingham better.

The Potter’s House Trust is a Christian charity that secured 1.8-million Heritage Lottery funding in 1997, to be used for restoration of the site, which re-opened in 1998 as a variety venue with live music, comedy, and theatre.

In 2003, a group of city centre churches set the Malt Cross up as a charitable trust, hoping to preserve the building and help the community with outreach work.

Nottingham’s Street Pastors, who can be seen helping inebriated and vulnerable people in Nottingham on a Friday or Saturday night, are based at the Malt Cross.

In our Grade II listed, former Victorian music hall, we stay true to the original intention of the music hall era with our diverse programme of live music and entertainment for the people of Nottingham. We are passionate about giving a platform to the current generation of artists and musicians in the city.

We’re incredibly proud of our wonderful space and all it offers. At the Malt Cross, the people of Nottingham can discover talented local musicians and artists, eat great food, enjoy fabulous, historic surroundings, drink award-winning ales and other quality drinks, take part in lively events, and feel safe in a place that exists to serve the local community.

YMCA pledged to keep the soul and legacy of the historical venue alive by featuring all the services the award-winning venue delivered, including the bar and café.

We work closely with YMCA, donating our bar a

The Music Hall

The music hall opened on October 2nd, 1877, in time for the Goose Fair, providing hot food and treating its punters to the popular strains of the Alhambra Band. Publicised as the ‘largest lounging vault in the United Kingdom’ in 1882, Malt Cross was a Victorian music hall that offered variety acts, live music, food, ale, and according to one of its managers, William Hulse, ‘curiosities and specimens too numerous to mention’.

A popular act of the day was Sam Torr, a singer and dancer from Beeston who drove the crowds wild. Fred Karno of Karno’s Army, who was credited with inventing the classic ‘custard pie in face’ gag and had worked with both Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, was a major draw, performing his comic acrobatic routine.Just before the outbreak of World War 1, Malt Cross’s reputation as “a haunt for felons and whores” resulted in the loss of its licence. The site was sold in 1914 and became a storage warehouse for over 40 years. While other Nottingham music halls were demolished, H.G. Chapman & Watson’s company didn’t destroy or dismantle the Malt Cross’s original features.

They didn’t exactly look after them either, but by leaving pillars and structural elements in place, they accidentally preserved much of the old music hall. When the famous Berni Brothers bought the site in 1967, they too left the original features untouched, using the lower floors as a glamorous Italian restaurant called Trattoria Conti.

wanted the venue to relive its music hall days. They re-opened the ground and first floors as a live music venue in 1983, breathing life into the building’s quiescent bones.

In 1989 the lease was purchased by the Potter’s House Trust, a Christian charity who used the site as a coffee shop where people in need could find counselling and support. The Trust applied for a host of funding and in 1997 they secured 1.8 million for a further restoration project. The site was re-opened in 1998 as a variety venue with live music, comedy, and theatre.

In 2003, a group of city centre churches set the Malt Cross up as a charitable trust, hoping to preserve the building and help the community with outreach work. Nottingham’s Street Pastors, who can be seen helping inebriated and vulnerable people in Nottingham on a Friday or Saturday night, are based at the Malt Cross. The Heritage Lottery grant was followed up by a further sum of 1.38 million in 2014, awarded for the redevelopment of the lower floors of the music hall so that the upper and lower areas of the site could be reunited for the first time since 1967. The music hall’s doors were closed for four months to undergo a massive restoration.nd kitchen operational surplus to the work of YMCA Robin Hood Group, but the Malt Cross Trust remains a separate registered charity with its own focus.