Vintage cinema collection's new home at landmark mill

Dion Hanson at the Projected Picture Trust's new storage facility in Halifax

The largest collection of vintage cinema projectors in the country has been given a new home at a Victorian mill in West Yorkshire.

The Projected Picture Trust (PPT), a charity dedicated to preserving old picture house technology, has relocated thousands of its artefacts to a basement at the landmark Dean Clough complex in Halifax.

Most of the collection, which includes projectors, film reels and classic cinema adverts, was previously being housed at an arts academy in Hertfordshire.

A number of the projectors were made under the brand name Kalee by the Leeds-based Kershaw Projection Company and used in cinemas in the 1940s.

The charity either preserves equipment taken from cinemas which are closing or "recycles" it.

The projectors are often loaned as props to period TV and film productions, and have appeared in such productions as the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech and the ITV detective drama Grantchester, which is set in the 1950s.

Some of the items would be sent to landfill sites if the trust did not salvage them, a spokesperson said.

The trust's collection of cinematic kit is believed to be the largest in the UK

Dion Hanson, the PPT's Halifax co-ordinator, said: "As a cinema closes, the equipment is taken out.

"Sometimes we will have a PPT member who is local and will let us know this cinema is being demolished or the equipment is just not being used and we look at it and see if it would add to our collection."

The trust was set up in the 1970s, when "picture palaces" were falling out of fashion and being converted into other entertainment venues, such as bingo halls or modern multiplexes.

The founding members formed the PPT to protect British cinema heritage.

The Dean Clough mill complex was once the world's largest carpet factories and was run by the Crossley family from 1841 until the site's closure in 1982.

It has since been restored as office space and arts venues.

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