Lorne Arcade, Ayr

Ayr’s Lorne Arcade has had a new lease of life this year, with a complete makeover, newly-renovated shop units and almost full occupancy in an arcade that has good footfall through from Ayr’s main shopping street to a large car park.

There aren’t many original features left from this arcade’s late 19^th century days, except perhaps the solid wood window frames on the upper floor. But the 2024 renovation has given it a fresh feel, with new businesses moving in, so that it now has a café, a florist’s, a hair salon, a tattoo parlour, a mobile phone shop, and even the local Member of Parliament has moved her office into the arcade. There is also an internal décor shop specialising in blinds, so the arcade today has a range of small shops typical of an arcade of this size in a medium-sized town like Ayr.

The glass ceiling is not original but serves its purpose keeping out the elements, and the new arcade owners have added their modern, stylish branding, making the name of the arcade much more visible than it was before and adding LA in large white lettering onto mirrors at either end, which give the sense of a much longer arcade than is actually the case. A clever design feature.

At the time of AnArcadesProject visit in October 2024 there was just one unit left for rent, with the glass displays at the High Street end (which I suspect were where films used to be advertised when a cinema was attached here) still covered in posters advertising the renovation works.

So, while not a 21^st century renovation on the scale of the grand arcades in Leeds, this is a big improvement in the centre of Ayr, and the local couple who took it on are to be congratulated on an initiative which could be well copied in other towns and cities where the old arcade has been neglected to the point of dilapidation (eg Grimsby, Southport, Burton).

My pick of the arcade’s past

Although Margaret MacKeith (1983 compendium of British arcades) has Lorne Arcade opening in 1880, the first mention in the British Newspaper Archives dates from 1905 when a Captain and Madame Texas, advertising as the world’s champion rifle shots, set up in Lorne Arcade in September of that year. Captain George Texas was back advertising a year later in 1906, apparently wanting to buy some ‘Wild Indian dresses’. And Freda, his wife, was accused by police of ‘pretending to tell fortunes’ as a palmist. Two police officers had been to the palm readings and been given fake stories, but in court the police officers lost their case since it was found that they didn’t believe in palmistry in the first place, so they could not have been deceived.

A court case in December 1907 pitted various shopkeepers from Lorne Arcade against each other over the rights to sell picture postcards in the arcade. Mrs Kate Braverman’s claim to exclusive rights was dismissed in court. Another court case found Benjamin Walker guilty of running an illegal betting house in the arcade in 1910 – he was fined £50.

In 1920 attempts were made to set up a cinema – a picture house in the language of the day – in Lorne Arcade. And by February 1921 the Ayr Kinema opened, with a main entrance in High Street and a side entrance in the arcade, which made me wonder if the glass display panels near the High Street end of the arcade today were once used for film posters. According to the local paper, “the dearer parts of the picture house were laid with Axminster carpets.” Did that mean straw and sawdust for the ‘cheaper’ seats?