Royal Arcade, Leicester

Royal Arcade is the oldest arcade in Leicester by over 20 years. It’s only short, and only has a handful of shops, but it has a cosy feel, with less grandeur than its neighbour the Silver Arcade, but also a sense of great potential if the vintage feel was built upon.

The year 1877 is carved into the stone over the arcade entrance, though that must have been when building started, as the arcade only formally opened the following spring, though I love that it stands, like much of Leicester, on ancient Roman remains, which were found when the arcade foundations were dug.

A second-hand bookshop takes centre-stage today and extends along more than half of one side of the arcade (it also seems to be a bit of a cultural hub, with posters advertising arty events around the city, as well as lots of pictures hanging, with a picture-framing service also on offer); vintage clothes shops take up most of the rest of this arcade, with a contemporary shoe shop and an empty unit completing the set of shop units. Surely there’s an incentive for the Council, which apparently owns Royal Arcade, to fill that remaining unit, with something along similar lines: a pop-up art gallery? Or some sort of artisan jeweller’s along the lines, again, of Derby’s Strand Arcade.

Royal Arcade has a very narrow walkway connecting High Street to Silver Street, but the close proximity of the shops on either side actually enhances the cosy feel of this arcade. The roof is glass, but opaque and certainly not original, though even its yellowing tone adds somehow to the warmth of the vibe in this really old arcade, the oldest surviving arcade in the East Midlands for sure.

My pick of the arcade’s past

The Royal Arcade in Leicester was completed in the spring of 1878. In the course of laying the foundations, various remains of Roman pottery were found deep in the ground under where the arcade is today.

Joseph Timson, who had the arcade built, ran a hotel and boarding house on two corners of the arcade when it first opened, with a lunch bar and restaurant too. However, when he applied for a licence to serve alcohol with the meals, the Temperance folk of Leicester managed to flag up the risk of drunkenness, pointing to the basement that ran the length of the arcade underneath as part of their evidence convincing the council not to grant the licence. By the first world war, the hotel had officially become a Temperance Hotel.

There was tragedy in the arcade in July 1919, when a 56-year-old tailor in the arcade tried to commit suicide by gassing himself in his shop. He was rescued by the hosiery manufacturer whose workshop was across the arcade. In the court case (suicide being a crime), he claimed to have lost money in the previous year, but his wife said his behaviour had changed since Christmas 1918, and another witness spoke of him not being the same since returning from the Army, and action in World War One. The poor man tried again just two months later, once again failing to take his own life.

Parts of the glass ceiling fell in during a fire in the arcade in 1930. The fire began in an electrical appliance shop, and flames rose to the top of the five storey building. Several firemen were injured in the blaze, and about twelve shops damaged.

Sources for the stories here all www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and specifically: 1) Leicester Advertiser, 11 May 1878 – Reach plc; Leicester Daily Post, 27 September 1878 – British Library Board; 2) Leicester Daily Mercury, 25 July 1919, Reach plc; 3) Dundee Evening Telegraph, 2 October 1930, DC Thomson & Co Ltd.