Hepworth’s Arcade is a picturesque shopping opportunity in Hull’s Old Town, situated on the corner of Silver Street (the continuation of Whitefriargate) and Market Place.
It was built in 1894 for the Leeds tailor Joseph Hepworth (1834-1911), who had founded his clothing factory with his brother-in-law James Rhodes in Leeds in 1864. The company moved into retailing in the 1880s and the Hull arcade was part of Joseph Hepworth’s development of a chain of tailor’s shops across Great Britain.
In the years after Joseph Hepworth’s death the company became the largest clothing manufacturer in Britain. (Though greatly transformed, the company still exists; it’s now known as Next plc.)
The arcade was designed by Alfred Gelder & Llewellyn Kitchen, a practice that survived until 2021 with headquarters at Maister House, a few minutes’ walk away on Hull’s High Street.
Hepworth’s Arcade is L-shaped, lit by barrel-vaulted glazing linked by an octagonal glass dome and cupola. Most of the units were originally two-storey, except that those at the Silver Street (north) and Market Place (east) entrances have three storeys.
The street facades are described as “Renaissance” in style, with segmental-arched entrances and bay windows with swan’s-neck pediments.
Hepworth’s original “new and handsome” premises were at No 8 Silver Street, a spacious unit at the entrance to the arcade. It set the tone for affluent customers seeking fashionable apparel.
Marks & Spencer provided a further magnet for customers when they opened one of their “Penny Bazaars” at 15, 17 and 19 Hepworth’s Arcade in 1899, transforming their units into an open-plan market which could be closed by roller shutters at the end of the trading day.
The departure of Marks & Spencer to prestigious premises (now abandoned) in Whitefriargate in 1931 signalled the beginning of a decline in shopping in the Old Town.
Nevertheless, in the repeated German attacks on Hull in 1941, the Arcade was blasted but not directly bombed, and its premises were in heavy demand while the city centre was redeveloped after the war.
Eventually, as the brand-new buildings between Queen Victoria Square and Paragon Station refocused the shopping area, the Arcade was taken over by Hull City Council in 1961.
It was listed Grade II in 1990 and refurbished in 1995 and again in 2002.
There’s a prodigious collection of photographs, from 360° panoramas to fine details, at Hepworth’s Arcade, Non Civil Parish – 1283101 | Historic England.
And all the history of shops and tenants that’s fit to print is set out in enormous detail in Graham Hardy, Hepworth’s Arcade: one hundred years of trading (Hutton Press 1996).