Oldham Coliseum Theatre

The theatre was constructed in 1885 as a timber building by the joiner Thomas Whittaker as a permanent home for Myer's Grand American Hippodrome Circus, on Henshaw Street. The circus owner was unable to pay for the work, so Whittaker took over ownership, and when the Henshaw Street site was proposed for redevelopment as a market, had the building dismantled and rebuilt on its present site in Fairbottom Street. It reopened there on 16 June 1887 with Culleen's Circus, as the Colosseum. The Era described it as being coated with fireproof paint and having a projecting balcony with loggia on the main façade, separate entrances for different classes of ticket holders, separate refreshment bars…