London's covered shopping arcades

Map of 5 locations in London, United Kingdom

Between 1818 and 1933 London built a run of glass-roofed shopping streets whose point was to keep mud off a hem, and five of them still run between the same pairs of streets they were cut through. This list sets each one against what can be documented: the construction dates, the architects where a listing names them, the original shop counts, and which parts came back after fire and bombing. They are public walkways rather than buildings you pay to enter, so the way in is simply one end or the other.

Places in this collection

  • Princes Arcade — The last of the Piccadilly to Jermyn Street arcades, built between 1929 and 1933 on the site of the Princes Hotel, which Edward Robert Robs…
  • Piccadilly Arcade — Opened in 1909 between Piccadilly and Jermyn Street, with twenty-eight shops on the ground floor and the bowed shopfronts that date the arc…
  • Royal Arcade — Completed in 1880, this Victorian arcade runs through the block from 12 Albemarle Street to 28 Old Bond Street in Mayfair, so it can be ent…
  • Burlington Arcade — Cut in 1818 through the side garden of Burlington House on the order of George Cavendish, 1st Earl of Burlington, the arcade runs 196 yards…
  • Royal Opera Arcade — Built 1816-1818 by John Nash and George Stanley Repton as part of their recasing of Novosielski's Haymarket Opera House, this is the surviv…

Related collections