ARCADES PROJECT

Arguably the best-preserved arcade on the South Coast, Royal Arcade in Worthing is celebrating its centenary in 2025, and is looking a lot better than many other arcades built in the 1920s.

One end of the arcade looks out towards the sea and the end of Worthing Pier. The other fronts on to South Street, one of the main shopping streets in the town.

There are lots of pointers to the arcade’s history, from the clock on the South Street entrance, through the photo of the old arcade in the window of the art gallery, to the marble flooring.

The shops are a great combination of top quality – two women’s boutiques, a wonderful clock shop (in the same family for ages, and the two sons of the original owners have created their own expertise in clocks and watches);– and arty: a superb art gallery (with an owner who shares my enthusiasm for arcade stories and has posted an excellent history on his gallery website); a guitar shop; and a tattoo parlour.

There is also the enormous premises of Richard John, a long-standing owner of the arcade’s main hair salon (see stories below), which includes not just hair care, but beauty rooms and (now elsewhere in the town) a hair and beauty school.

There’s also a menswear shop, a travel agent’s, an optician’s and a café, with two national brands at the South Street end of the arcade.

This is a role model arcade for a smallish town: no empty units and clearly a destination for many of the visitors to its businesses. It helps that it leads directly to the pier from the main shopping area, so footfall is likely greater during the summer tourist season, but it is well-maintained and clearly prides itself on the quality of businesses allowed to trade.

My pick of the arcade’s past

There were 17 shops in the original arcade which opened to the public in June 1925. Among the early tenants were: Music shop (No 3); art gallery (No 4); sweets (No 7); jewellery (No 9); china and gifts (No 10); grocery (No 11); cameras and photography (Nos 13 & 15); wool shop (No 14); menswear (No 19); and Mitchell’s Arcade Café, which would be a mainstay of the arcade for many years to come.

The photographer in the arcade was called upon by police to take shots of the scene when a fatal car accident happened along the front at Worthing in 1932. The car had been stolen in Brighton and driven at speed along the coast to Worthing, where the driver lost control of the vehicle, mounted the footpath and knocked over a man, who died at the scene. William Gardiner not only took pictures of the body and the wreck, but then had to give evidence in court when the driver was sentenced.

‘Madame Elsevere’ gave ‘psychological palm readings’ out of a shop in the arcade in the 1930s. “Your difficulties and troubles can be smoothed away by my sympathetic help and advice,” ran her adverts in the local papers. Meanwhile at No 6, Vera Hodgeman reckoned her course would ‘revivify’ you if you were suffering physically or mentally, though the ads didn’t say what kind of ‘course’ she ran…

With the outbreak of war, and blackouts imposed, the photographer in the arcade, Walter Gardiner (son of the original shopkeeper) had the inspired idea of selling home cine projectors for ‘home movies’ ‘to banish blackout boredom.’

Sources for these stories www.newspaperarchive.co.uk and specifically: 1) Worthing Gazette, 3 June 1925 – National World Publishing Ltd; 2) Worthing Gazette, 17 February 1932 – National World Publishing Ltd; 4) Worthing Gazette, 24 January 1940 – National World Publishing Ltd

What memories do you have of visits in years gone by?

Have you got any good stories to add on the past of this arcade?

What’s your favourite shop in the arcade today?

Have you seen this arcade in any films or books?

Is there a website for this arcade?

No website as such, but a fairly active Facebook page, and here is a link to the history of the arcade posted by the people behind the Gigglewick Gallery in the arcade.