9. Shopping Arcade

This plaque is located on the wall next to Grasmere Butchers on Westgate and opposite the entrance to the Bull Hotel.

Until Westgate Arcade was created any attempt to reach Westgate via the then dog-legged Cumbergate (both were ancient streets) would have deposited the confused traveller into Long Causeway.

Thus, in the 1920s, a joint enterprise by local architect Alan Ruddle and Fitzwilliam Estates, who shared the land ownership, sought to reap the economic benefits of improved access.

Westgate Arcade adopts a broadly Neo-Georgian or Regency idiom. Shop fronts with centrally placed recessed doorways have hardwood frames with slender mouldings detailed with considerable elegance. There was an extensive refurbishment in 2015. Above the shops are galleries set behind colonnades giving access to sash-windowed offices.

The new alignment of Cumbergate from the parish church through the arcade and on to Westgate is crossed by an arm of the Queensgate Shopping Centre. This runs roughly on the old alignment, with the former Still public house (of early 19th century origin at least) marking the 90 degree angle in the dog-leg.

Antecedents of the shopping arcade are variously recorded throughout medieval Europe, including London; but as a building type it was brought to fruition in late 18th century Paris. London soon caught up. The famous Burlington Arcade of 1818-19 stretches all of 580 feet (considerably longer than Peterborough Cathedral) north from Piccadilly. Within a few hundred yards are a handful of other arcades of various dates, including John Nash’s elegant Royal Opera Arcade of 1816-18 on Pall Mall.

Fine shopping arcades survive, for example in Bristol, Bath and Hull. Nearer to home are those in Bedford (1905), Letchworth (1921), and George Skipper’s spectacular essay in Art Nouveau faience at the Royal Arcade, Norwich (1899).

Giant arcades appeared on the Continent too. Brussels’ magnificent Galeries St-Hubert is completely outdone in scale by Milan’s gargantuan Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II of the 1860s. By contrast to all of this, Peterborough’s Westgate Arcade – a very late contribution to the building type – seems the very model of restraint.

This plaque, the ninth in a series of twenty blue plaques recently installed in the city centre by Peterborough Civic Society, was erected with generous assistance from Queensgate, with specific help and assistance from the centre director, Mark Broadhead. Further details about all the plaques can be found in the accompanying leaflet available at the Visitor Information Society or via the Society’s website.