Leadenhall Market Arcade, London

The arcade in Leadenhall Market dates from 1881. It was apparently modelled on Milan’s famous Victor Emanuele Gallery, though it has always had a very different feel from Milan’s glamorous arcade. Once known for the place you’d get ‘fur and feathers,’ Leadenhall Market arcade today is a bit more of a foodie’s paradise, with Tapas bars, a Mexican grill, an oyster bar, and various places to get an upmarket drink.

I was pleased, however, to find that just outside the arcade entrance heading towards Lime Street, it was still possible to find the kind of fry-up breakfast the market stallholders and arcade shopkeepers might have had 100 and more years ago.

The main feature of this arcade is still the glass dome above the central area, from which the four arms of the arcade branch off. City of London-style dragons guard all the entrances, and sit atop the various pillars around that central domed area.

Red and cream are the dominant colours on all the shop fronts and upper walls, with tinges of gold leaf and those silver dragons with their red tongues darting out over the shoppers below.

There’s no longer any traffic allowed through this arcade, though the cobbled roadway is still in place, just with barriers blocking any vehicular entry. It’s a busy, lively arcade, though, being so close to the offices in the City, so is lively through the day, and into the evening for after-office drinks and eats. A bit like Covent Garden, its shopkeepers and customers might have changed a bit since its early market days, but unlike Covent Garden, Leadenhall is rich with original features allowing the visitor today to see what a magnificent structure this was from the opening day in 1881.

My pick of the arcade’s past

Leadenhall Market was known as the place for ‘fur and feathers,’ basically a meat market. The opening of the arcade was timed so that the poultry trade could pick up again in time for Christmas birds to be bought here.

In January 1895 a market employee was charged with stabbing in the stomach one of the shop assistants from the arcade, using a butcher’s knife. Press reports didn’t give any details of motives or outcomes.

Archaeological works in the 1920s led to the discovery that the main market forum in the Roman settlement of Londinium lay directly under the current Leadenhall Market, with arcaded walkways between Gracechurch and Fenchurch streets, exactly as the arcade still is today.

Not all the original shop fronts had glass windows, many staying as open units until the 1970s, when a major report resulted in improved drainage, refuse collection, and removal of rodents, as well as finally banning ‘poultry plucking’ in the arcade.

Sources for the above stories www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk 1) Dundee Advertiser, 18 January 1895 (British Library Board); 2) Civil & Military Gazette, Lahore, 5 February 1926 (British Library Board); 3) Margaret MacKeith Gazeteer of British Arcades, 1983.