The Arcade, Bedford

The Arcade in Bedford opened in 1905, and one of its tenants today has been serving sweets to the locals for just about as long as the arcade has existed. Arcadia is one of those vintage sweet shops that go down well in this sort of arcade.

The Arcade is an unpretentious walkway that joins Bedford’s High Street to Harpur Street, but it’s doing very well for itself with a high occupancy rate, and a nice mix of interesting independent shops.

The businesses operating out of The Arcade have a little plaque each at the entrance to the arcade to help anyone unsure of why they might enter such a space: there’s a podiatrist, a tattoo parlour, beauty and hair salons, a florist, an optician’s, clothes stores and a health food shop. The vintage shop has one of the few remaining beautifully-curved vintage shopfronts, and then there are two shops that definitely cater for current trends, with a busy scooter repair shop, and a vinyl record shop. As well as those sweets, you can keep hunger at bay with an ice cream store and a café.

The arcade has a real mix of architectural styles, probably because it has been added to over different periods. The glass ceiling over the main section today is a more modern addition, whereas the oldest roof section is obscured by panelling and safety nets (or are these designed to keep birds out of the roof spaces, rather than stopping things falling from above?).

There is mock tudor style above many of the shop fronts, with attractive decorated columns between one or two of the stores. The overriding colour scheme is of dark navy blue and gold, from the brick entrance on High Street, through some of the shops (including Arcadia sweets), and along one of the sections nearer to the High Street end.

I give Bedford’s Arcade a thumbs up for finding a model that works in a busy commuter town: keeping small, local independent businesses there, and keeping things useful rather than just quirky, as has happened in some other arcades visited so far. It’s work-a-day, but interesting, and I can imagine a reason why I might at some point need or want to visit all the shops there.

My favourite shop today

This has to be the Arcadia sweet shop, not just because they had my favourite Dutch salt licquorice, but of course because they have been here in the Arcade since the year it opened, 118 years ago. But I also loved the vintage shop, the record shop, and I’m sure if I was 40 years younger, I’d have loved the scooter repair shop.

My pick of the arcade’s past

In 1905, at the opening of Bedford’s arcade, the Bedfordshire Mercury newspaper dubbed it Bedford’s “Crystal Palace,” at a time when the London building referred to was still popular as an events venue, and 30 years before the fire which then destroyed the actual Crystal Palace. The newspaper claimed this arcade was “one of the finest covered business places in the country,” on a site which used to have just market gardens on it. “The Arcade has come to stay, to be a success, and to be an additional attraction to this beautiful town of Bedford.”

Among the shops in the arcade on opening day were: Tom Coombs’ lace and underwear boutique (No 1); a greengrocer’s (No 11); Madam Pellissier’s hat shop (No 13); an optician. The Bedfordshire Lace shop was still going in 1909…Clayton’s, the men’s outfitters celebrated its 21^st year ‘coming of age’ in April 1926.

But the prize for longest-lasting business in Bedford Arcade must surely go to Arcadia Sweet Shop, which declares in its advertising that it has been serving the people of Bedford since 1905, the year the arcade first opened.