High Street Arcade, Cardiff

High Street Arcade in Cardiff’s ‘Castle Quarter’ is unique for its curving swerving shape as it makes its way from High Street through to St John Street.

The High Street entrance is very grand, with a decorated archway and elaborate moulding in the stonework arches above the first floor windows. There are two balconies also here looking down over High Street. This is one of Cardiff’s Victorian arcades, having opened in the 1880s, with the Edwardian Duke Street Arcade branching off it to the left as you walk away from High Street.

And there are big plans for High Street Arcade, too, with the owners applying for planning permission to pull down an existing nightclub and replace it with a food and restaurant ‘courtyard’, revealing original features which have been hidden for decades.

The main tenants today are already specialising in tea and coffee, with the Barker Tea Rooms looking very glamorous across at least four of the old shop units, and Corner Coffee bringing speciality coffee to the arcade, too.

A lot of the units are currently empty (though some would be incorporated in the new development if it goes ahead), but there are also arcade classics here like vintage clothes shops, a tattoo and barber’s, and more hoardings advertising new businesses soon to open up here.

There are attractive leadlight windows in the upper sections of each shop front, with some shops (the tattoo parlour and a former music shop) picking out this as a motif for the shop logo and branding.

Watch this space for updates if/when the new developments come through.

My pick of the arcade’s past

Plain-clothes police were needed within a year of the arcade opening to stop youths from loitering and causing disturbances, especially on Sundays. Two young men were found guilty of ‘disorderly conduct’ after they jostled people walking in the arcade and even snatched a flower from the dress of a young woman in the arcade. They were fined 5 shillings each, with the option to choose five days in prison. The punishment did little to prevent these incidents, with further cases reaching the courts after similar incidents several years later.

In 1889 the Danish Dairy in the arcade (at No 2) had an artist among its staff. His carvings of butter into shapes like the Cardiff arms, a shield and an anchor, or a display of seashells, would draw crowds to the arcade and the shop just to see his latest designs.

South Wales’ first kite shop moved into the arcade after a refurbishment in 1992. The Specsavers branch in the arcade made the news in 1993 when the manager, an Irishman, was said to be looking for a French member of staff to join his ‘Five Nations’ team, which already included English, Scottish and Welsh. This was of course in the era before Italy joined the rugby scene.

Sources for the above stories all from www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, and specifically: 1) South Wales Daily News, 3 May 1887 – National Library of Wales; 2) South Wales Daily News, 19 October 1889, National Library of Wales; 3) South Wales Echo, 5 March 1993, Reach plc.