ARCADES PROJECT

The Arcade in Barnsley dates from 1891 and is basically a cobbled street with a glass roof over most of it. A blue plaque at one end of the arcade tells us that you once had to mind your back, and your toes, as horses and carriages would pass down this passage like a normal street.

There’s no sign these days of the blouses, felt hats or stuffed animals you would buy from shops in the arcade in its early years. These days, you’re more likely to come for a haircut (or a wig) or some other beauty pampering treatment. The only clothes you’ll find here now are sports gear or dancewear, as well as spectacles.

The floristry school is a nice touch, and the Victorian tea rooms keep up a tradition of going to the arcade for a cuppa.

This is not an arcade in the grand style of Leeds or Cardiff, but more along the lines of similar Yorkshire towns like Halifax or the Imperial Arcade in Huddersfield. And it is clearly doing OK, with occupancy rate pretty high compared to many others seen in this arcades project.

There are also not many original features, partly because the arcade went through several major refurbishments, though the ironwork frames to the glass roof may well date from Victorian times when the arcade was first built.

The blue plaques are a nice touch, even if the humour is slightly 1950s, but I can’t help feeling the local Council could make a fair bit more of the stories behind this little bit of Victoriana in a town where much of the architecture is either super-modern or that weary 60s/70s style.

My pick of the arcade’s past

Dances were held in the Arcade Hall on many evenings, but one night in 1894 that led to violence, when a man began causing trouble in the arcade, and when the police were called, he launched himself at the police sergeant who attended, biting, kicking and punching the officer, who was too ill to appear in court for the sentencing of the offender. By the mid 1890s, the Misses Gambles were offering dance classes on Wednesday evenings in the same arcade dance hall.

The mid-1920s saw a complete overhaul of this arcade, with a change of tenancies once the arcade reopened in 1928.

One of the new tenants was Garner’s motor shop. Mr Garner would organise outings for motor enthusiasts from Barnsley to motor manufacturing centres. In 1930 this involved a trip to the AJS motorbike makers in Wolverhampton. Tea was served after the tour of the factory and photographs were taken. During the war Garner’s diversified and became the local stockist for official ARP uniforms and equipment.

Most of Barnsley’s music community must have made a beeline for Marshall’s music shop at Nos 11-13 in the 1930s. He sold mostly pianos but all sorts of musical clubs had their headquarters in the shop, including drummers, accordeonists and general lovers of swing music. In 1938 a Rhythm Club (precursor to R&B?) opened in the shop to cater for the growing enthusiasm for this new music style. Marshall’s claimed in 1939 to be entering their 50^th year in business, which suggests they started out elsewhere in town, unless they got their dates wrong, since the arcade only opened in 1891.

Marshall’s also adapted with changes in technology: records and gramophones became more popular, as well as Marconis (an early name for radios). But pianos were still his mainstay, and when war broke out Marshall’s promised: “Any piano purchased from us for cash and subsequently destroyed by enemy action replaced FREE.” Marshall’s was still going in 1956, by which time of course they had moved onto selling televisions. He suffered a break-in in 1959, when someone went off with 60 LPs and a radio.

Sources for the above stories all from www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and specifically: 1) Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 16 May 1894 – British Library Board; 2) South Yorkshire Times, 25 April 1930 – National World Publishing Ltd; 3) Marshalls stories: various snippets via the newspaperarchive website.

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 shop in the arcade

For me you can’t beat the Victorian Tea Rooms in a Victorian arcade, though I’d love to know more about the floristry school…

Is there a website for this arcade?

There is a really nice website for Barnsley’s Victorian Arcade, but not many updates since it was created in 2015. Link to the website here. The Arcade is also active on Facebook, where there are regular updates.

This arcade in films or books?

Well, I didn’t find any, but there were a couple of nice YouTube videos, one from Barnsley Museums, showing the arcade in the 1960s, and a recent one from two ladies who went on a quest a bit like mine to find the stories behind the arcade shopkeepers. Check that one out here.