Leicester Civic Society this week announced that it had been "passed" (ooh...mysterious!) some photos of the medieval building discovered behind some dirty windows in the Silver Arcade. I naturally thought they meant the Silver Arcade which has been closed since 2000 and which is supposedly due to re-open in 2012.
In fact they meant the bit on the other side of Cank Street. This bit has always intrigued me. Used mostly by people as a short cut through to the market place it is currently occupied by two cafes and some other shops which seem to have odd opening hours (if they ever open at all). I don't know what the cafes are like (but Crusty's has been there for as long as can remember
(which is a shockingly long time) so it must be doing something right, and the other one has an interesting music policy so is probably worth checking out too.
There is also a jewellers (mentioned in the Mercury article) which I think has closed down, but rather confusingly the 'closing down' sign has been crossed out. It looks like they haven't changed the window display since the 1960s.
Or the sign advertising the shop. There are fonts here which just don't get used to-day (except in an ironic way).
Anyway, talking of things surviving more because they are neglected than for any other reason brings us back to the medieval building. According to an article in Leicester Mercury (from December 2009) this was actually first "discovered" in 2002 when some alterations were made to this part of the Arcade. The building is believed to be 16th century. I wandered down there to have a look and indeed you can still see this building if you press your face against a rather
grubby window just past Crusty's. There's not a lot left and I'm not sure I agree with the Civic Society who want to save it. I think there comes a time when we have admit that some buildings are beyond help. It's not listed, presumably because it's felt that too much of it has already been lost. I would imagine it's under no immediate danger anyway. But what could you do with it even even you saved it?
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