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ARCADE FIRED UP bw-magazine.co.uk
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Hull’s most quirky collection of stores is a thriving community of independents. Phil Ascough goes for an extended browse…
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ver coffee in Paragon Arcade you can just about hear the tunes from the music shop in between the chatter of curious shoppers, drinkers and diners getting to know the traders, making new friends and bumping into old ones they haven’t seen in ages. Collectively, the sound of a trend being bucked. It would be an overstatement to say that the arcade is single-handedly driving the renaissance of retail, but it is definitely demonstrating that small is beautiful and hinting that independence will be integral to the return of happier times to the high street. Growing numbers of big barns are trying to reinvent themselves as havens
for small traders, the new take on the old indoor markets where instead of open stalls everybody has their own front door. If they get it right they might end up with something like Paragon Arcade, but the starting point has to be a recognition that this place didn’t just happen. Allenby Commercial bought the arcade in 2017, having relocated its own office from Hessle to the Old Town of Hull the previous year because of a desire to be at the heart of the City of Culture buzz. Managing director Andrew Allenby revealed he had harboured a dream for years of buying the arcade, which was built in 1891 by Sir Alfred Gelder and listed for architectural interest in 1994. Allenbys
made its move when the previous owners, a local family that had held the property for about 60 years, finally decided to sell. The company’s other city centre projects include the restoration of Danish Buildings and the Grade II listed Bayles House in High Street, conversion of derelict offices and shops into the Hideout Hotel next to Hull Minster and – coming soon – the exciting transformation of Europa House into Monocle. But Paragon Arcade is more public and presents living proof of the Allenby ethos of developing communities beyond buildings. The fact that the tenants work so well together is no accident. They are all carefully selected to complement each
