
Royal Arcade, Boscombe, Bournemouth
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It’s hard to imagine today that Boscombe’s beautiful Victorian arcade used to host daily concerts, with an organ, an orchestra and singers on the balcony. It reminded me of Southport’s wonderful Wayfarers’ Arcade in the sense that it has seen better days, though I think even the Southport arcade has more connection back to its illustrious past than the Royal Arcade in Boscombe.
The balcony standing under the magnificent glass dome in the centre of the arcade is stunning, and must have been a fabulous stage for those performers 100 years ago. Surely that would merit an information board with maybe some photos of a concert underway? And what exactly are the two statues in the middle of the walkway supposed to represent? Or the obelisk under that glass dome? For all we know they might have been dumped there in the 1990s, but if they date from the arcade’s early days, they must have a few stories to tell…
The shop fronts in the Royal Arcade are beautiful, with the curved glass frontages and wooden frames to the facades. Upstairs there used to be accommodation (as we know from some of the stories in my Pick of the Past), and a development notice in the window of the arcade entrance suggests plans are afoot to refurbish the upper levels into offices and flats, so perhaps that will bring life back to this elegant old lady.
The shops in the arcade today are about as diverse as they were 125 years ago: the Italian deli at one end looks polished and modern, while I quite liked the character of the other cafe taking up several units on the other side of the passage – and this place even has a pop-up Citizens Advice office beavering away helping locals while I sipped my tea.
There are hair and beauty salons, vinyl records for sale, an art shop, a place selling incense and the like, then very niche outlets like the Italian coffee machine shop or the place to get dog treats. There are a few empty units, though, and Royal Arcade could do with a boost, I think, either promoting its edgy independent character or in some way acknowledging its very distinguished past.
My pick of the arcade’s past
Archibald Beckett, a local builder and landowner, known in the arcade’s early days as ‘the maker of Boscombe’ had the Royal Arcade built in 1892, a first stage in transforming this sleepy community into the busy residential and commercial centre it then became in Bournemouth. Local newspapers called it ‘one of the finest arcades in the kingdom.’ The arcade was opened to great fanfare by the Duke of Connaught (one of Queen Victoria’s children) in December 1892.
There were concerts in the arcade from very early on, one report saying 700-800 people attended at one event in 1893; over 1000 at another. The Boscombe Orchestra played every afternoon at 3.30pm in the Royal Arcade during the summer of 1897. And in 1900 gilt letters with the words ‘Royal Arcade’ appeared over the arched entrance, as well as announcements that there was ‘music daily’ and ‘band and organ.’ By 1901, the Bournemouth Daily Echo was declaring that the daily music in the Royal Arcade was the only thing that took the mind off the ‘deadly dulness’ of Boscombe.
The arcade organ needed six months’ repair in early 1906, after a fire in the arcade damaged the instrument. A massive crowd gathered at the arcade, when the newly-restored organ was unveiled in July that year. And by the 1920s concerts were being broadcast direct from the Arcade on national radio.
In June 1904, there was a Bournemouth police clampdown on palmistry in the town. Emily Dewone aka Madame Dewone was arrested when police marched into her premises in Royal Arcade and caught her in the act of reading someone’s palm. She was put on trial along with three others practising in different parts of Bournemouth.
The restaurant in the arcade caught fire one night in 1911. The family who ran the business had to escape through attic windows and over the roof to neighbouring properties, and other arcade residents had similar escapes in their night clothes. Much of the glass ceiling caved in due to the flames. The manager of the gym opened his premises as a refuge for those who had escaped in their pyjamas, and many were barefoot, with blisters on their feet from the heated paving stones they had run across. The organ survived this fire undamaged, though.
Sources for the above stories all from www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk courtesy of British Library Board, and specifically: 1) Southern Echo, 17 June 1892; 2) Bournemouth Daily Echo, 6 February 1901; 3) Bournemouth Graphic, 19 July 1906; 4) Bournemouth Daily Echo, 21 June 1904; 5) Bournemouth Daily Echo, 20 October 1911.









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 shops in the arcade
I loved the cafe that takes up a good few units on the left hand side as you enter the arcade from Bournemouth. Great tea and cake, but also loved the social community aspect of this place, with its CAB volunteers working away to help local residents.
I also had a lovely chat with the Italian guy running the espresso machine shop. If only I lived closer, I could bring in my home machine which stopped working recently…
Is there a website for this arcade?
Boscombe Arcade has a really nice website with some beautiful photos of how it looks today and a history section showing how it looked 100+ years ago. Here’s a link to the site, though I believe it was updated regularly by a lady whose shop in the arcade recently closed down, so I hope someone else takes on the task. It’s well worth it.
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