Queen Victoria's funeral was the first film shown at the Empire

It would cost �1.5m to renovate the 100-year-old derelict building, and on Tuesday Wrexham council decided its career was finally over.

A structural report on the now silent former music hall and cinema revealed that for safety reasons much of the building would have to be taken down and reconstructed if it could be brought back into use.

The report found that walls were spreading with age; the creaking roof timbers needed propping up to avoid collapse; there was dry rot and a possible threat to the safety of passing pedestrians and cyclists

Victorian heyday

The recommendation councillors agreed was that the property be declared surplus to the council's requirement although they have yet to decide how it should be disposed over.

It is a Grade II listed building because of its historical use as a music hall and as an appendage to the Seven Stars public house.

This was a common arrangement in the heyday of music halls in the Victorian decades of the 19th century when saloons started to offer variety acts to bring the customers in, keep them there and sell more booze.

And the turnover of profits was important in the days when gin was the popular drink and the motto was "drunk for a penny; dead drunk for tuppence."

The music hall developed from the pub variety acts and provided the main entertainment for the urban working classes who flocked into the towns and cities at the height of the industrial revolution.

Final act

The Empire opened its doors on 1 April, 1902, and had a mixed act of variety acts and short clips of early newsreels on what was known as a bioscope.

Customers on that opening night were shown the funeral of Queen Victoria and clips of the Boer War. Admission for the 580 patrons was one shilling for orchestra stalls and four pence for the balcony.

Through the years it continued to mix variety and films, but it changed to the new talkies when it re-opened as a cinema in February 1932, finally closing down in 1956.

Now the days of laughter are long gone, and the curtain is falling on the old Empire for the final time.