ARCADES PROJECT

The entrance to Duke Street Arcade in Cardiff is in a prime location directly opposite the magnificent walls of Cardiff Castle. Cardiff’s only Edwardian arcade is actually a short arm shooting off from the longer High St Arcade (which will receive a separate entry on An Arcades Project).

The arcade was home to two main gents’ outfitters in its early days, and there is a photo of the entrance from the 1950s on the counter of the hair salon occupying the site where Jotham’s stood for decades. The Jotham’s name is still visible above the hair salon shop front, from the days when it occupied Numbers 1-3-5 and 7.

Across the way is now an ice cream parlour, but thanks to the friendly manager in the hair salon, I was able to find out that the coats of arms of various UK towns and cities above the main shop window represent the places where the original occupants, Dunn & Co, (another gents’ outfitters) had a branch.

There are quite a few empty units in this short arcade today, but there is also a cafe/deli and a seafood restaurant (with a trolley load of oyster shells standing idle in the arcade walkway, giving a clue of what might be their speciality).

It’s a shame to see the vacant units because they are all beautiful shop fronts, with patterned leadlight windows, and this arcade links directly into High Street Arcade, which was built a few years earlier than Duke Street Arcade.

My pick of the arcade’s past

An Italian tenor, Signor Emmini, who had performed with the Imperial Opera in Moscow, was giving singing lessons from a shop in the arcade in early 1914.

Whitlock, photographer to the King, moved into the arcade in the 1920s. His photos of a local river were used in a court case in which it was shown that pollution from coal mines had changed the quality of the water in the river. Whitlock’s photos showed the colour change in the water. A future Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, took the case for the prosecution.

In 1993, 20 women held a ‘breast-in’ protest in the arcade after two Mums were asked to stop breast-feeding their babies in an arcade cafe. (South Wales Echo, 14 July 1993 – Reach plc) Three years later the same cafe in the arcade was active in a breast cancer awareness campaign. (South Wales Echo, 8 June 1996 – Reach plc). And the cafe was on the TV in 1999 when it was the setting for a commercial advertising the soap opera ‘Eastenders.’ with Cardiff locals talking about the programme over their cuppa in the arcade.

Sources for the above stories all on www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and The British Library Board. Three articles, all from the South Wales Echo, all fed the cafe breast-in story: 14 July 1993, 8 June 1996, 8 February 1999 – Reach plc

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?

My favourite shop in the arcade

Well, I loved the ice-cream parlour just because they kept those beautiful stained glass windows from the original tenants of this shop, but I confess I didn’t buy any ice cream. And I loved the hair salon just for their pride in the past of their shop unit occupied once by Jotham’s, and the friendliness of the staff, but I confess I have no hair to cut, so will not be a customer, sadly.

Is there a website for this arcade?

Duke Street Arcade comes under the umbrella of the Cardiff City of Arcades website, linked to here.