Examiner reporter BARRY GIBSON spent yesterday morning looking around the abandoned Palace Theatre, a landmark Huddersfield building

A FEW crunching steps into the pitch black of the Palace Theatre and I came to a set of double doors.

Thousands of Huddersfield people have passed through these doors on the way to a big night out – whether at the bingo, the casino, or the club which have taken turns occupying the building.

A wooden sign lay on the floor, a mock-up of the old-fashioned road signs, pointing the way in to the Palace Theatre.

As I passed through the double doors the sound of the buses on Kirkgate faded away to nothing.

The signs of decay were everywhere with my little pocket torch picking out broken plaster, loose wires and old chairs piled up.

Reminders of the good times were there too.

At one of the Palace Theatre bars there was an old Budweiser packet, a painting of a pink Cadillac and a poster advertising the nightclub Society – the last occupant of the building.

Further up the stairs I found the rotting red theatre seats on which generations of people would have sat and laughed.

And there were signs of seasonal cheer too. On the floor lay Christmas crackers long since pulled and baubles from a long-dead Christmas tree.

Loose wires hanging out from the walls hinted at the most recent occupiers of this building – the metal thieves who spent several nights this month plundering the place.