With its glass, barrel-vaulted roof and ornate tilework, it is one of Newcastle city centre's most striking architectural locations - and now ChronicleLive has reported, it's up for sale.
The Central Arcade stands a stone's throw from Grey's Monument and has entrances on Grey Street, Market Street and Granger Street. The triangular building’s basement, ground and second floors are now on the market, with the owners looking for at least £11.75m. Read the full story here.
The original so-called Central Exchange was built in 1837, the same year Queen Victoria came to the throne. The mastermind behind the project was builder Richard Grainger, the man who helped create the Newcastle we know and love today.
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The Central Exchange, was initially a centre for commerce, but at the end of the 1830s it became a subscription newsroom where people went to read the newspapers of the day, then later an art gallery. As well as admiring the paintings, you could go there to play cards, chess and billiards - and have a smoke.
In 1897, a vaudeville theatre and restaurant replaced the art gallery, but disaster struck three years later. The building had survived a fire in 1867, but in 1900 a major blaze completely destroyed the interior.
Constructed within the original building to a design by J Oswald and Son, it was rebuilt as the current Central Arcade, a supremely elegant Edwardian shopping hub.
On Saturday, May 19, 1906, the Evening Chronicle, reported on the official opening of the arcade, which took place "in the presence of a large company", with many dignitaries including the mayor, in attendance.
The report noted: "Magnificent shops have risen on a spot that should ever be remembered in the history of the city - for the old art gallery with its pictures, its reading rooms, and its concerts did much for the social and intellectual enjoyment of the inhabitants before the days of municipal libraries, picture galleries, and concerts. The building was erected by Richard Grainger for a corn exchange nearly 70 years ago."
The new block of 23 shops, which were "in line with the most up-to-date business premises in England", had a floor space of 3,300 square yards and was valued at "considerably over £300,000". The report continued: "The frontages to the three outside streets are occupied by lofty shops in which many of the leading tradespeople of the district are established."
Inside the arcade, underneath a steel and glass roof 50 feet above the vitreous mosaic floor, "all the shop fronts are treated uniformly in polished teak and plate glass". Many of us will have visited the arcade to buy records, sheet music or musical equipment at JG Window’s store - a purveyor of all things musical since 1908. Over the years the well-known shop has welcomed many of the region’s budding pop and rock stars through its doors as young shoppers, from Mark Knopfler to Bryan Ferry to AC/DC’s Brian Johnson.
"It is hoped," the Chronicle report from 116 years ago stated, the new Central Arcade "will become a favourite shopping resort and one of the main avenues of pedestrian traffic in the city."
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