The Arcade, Bournemouth

The oldest arcade in Bournemouth was built in the 1860s, with the glass roof going up in the early 1870s. It’s a simple walkway in the centre of the town about 100 metres long.

There’s an interesting mix of shops today from the oldest resident, Chas. Fox, the jeweller’s, here for over 100 years, to the super modern and top-quality coffee shop at the corner on Gervis Place.

There are a couple of big High Street brands (plus one that went out of business quite a while ago, though hoardings tell us that this will be converted to student accommodation by autumn 2024) alongside youthful street-culture clothes and independent arty jewellers.

Inside Charles Fox Jeweller’s there is a treasure trove of original features from the beautiful stained-glass window at the back, with CF initials in each corner and depiction of what I was told was the patron saint of jewellers (St George, he of the dragon – who knew?), to the etching of the original arcade with its twin turrets at one end, now sadly long gone. And of course Chas. Fox is written in the flooring of the arcade, as this shop started out on these very premises, when the family moved to Bournemouth from Yeovil in the very early days of this arcade. There is even a portrait of the original Mr Fox which sits proudly on the wall behind his great-grandson, who manages the shop today.

The stained-glass windows at the top end of the arcade are beautiful, and don’t miss the decoration around the drain pipes high up above the shops, or the Charles Fox clock down at the bottom end of the arcade near Gervis Place.

My pick of the arcade’s past

There used to be a bridge on the site of Bournemouth Arcade which crossed a deep ravine, so the shops in this arcade have very deep basements. It was first mooted in 1864, the idea being to name the arcade after the local landowner Sir G. E. M. T. Gervis. Indeed, it was originally given this name, though no trace remains now of signage confirming that. The arcade took seven years to build, starting in 1866, with the glass roof finally installed in 1873.

In 1909 a local commentator wrote in the Bournemouth Graphic newspaper: “Turning into Gervis Arcade, I was at once in a throng of life! Such a buzz of talk, such elbowing and (almost) pushing, of each other, in order to see the too fascinating shops! Evidently, this Arcade is a favourite promenade – and there also I noticed many seats where people might “rest and be thankful.”

A grocer’s shop in the arcade went up in flames during the night in May 1901, the heat and smoke also damaging a jeweller’s next door. Two elderly ladies and several shop assistants who lived above their workplaces had to escape across the arcade roof. One of the assistants left her watch under her pillow, and was amazed the next morning to find it hot and blackened but still ticking normally.

In 1910, somebody pointed out the anomaly that prams were prohibited from entering the arcade, but bicycles were allowed, and there were sometimes ‘dozens’ of these taking up space in the busy walkway.

Sources for the stories in this section all come from the website www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, and specifically: 1) Bournemouth Graphic, 1 April 1909, British Library Board; 2) Weymouth Telegram, 21 May 1901, British Library Board; Bournemouth Guardian, 25 May 1901, British Library Board.