The Corridor, Bath

The Corridor runs from Bath’s High Street to the fringes of Union Street, Bath’s main shopping thoroughfare. One of the UK’s oldest surviving shopping arcades, it opened in 1825, as the Parisian fashion for boutique arcades spread across the English Channel to Britain. Modelled on London’s famous Burlington Arcade, it was designed by Henry Goodridge and was designed in the grand Georgian style of the time, once housing polished pillars and traditional glazed shop fronts. The arcade was redeveloped in Victorian times, with all shops fitted with plate glass frontages that are still in place today. The glass and wrought iron curved roof, which runs along the length of the arcade, also remains intact.

In the present day, the Corridor remains a popular destination for shoppers, and forms part of a maze of alleyways housing alternative stores and fashionable boutiques, as well as a number of elegant, affordable cafés. William Friese-Greene, the alleged inventor of cinematography, once owned a photographic workshop within the arcade. Sadly, The Corridor has experienced disaster in its history. In 1974, an IRA bomb detonated within the arcade, causing huge damage to this historic quarter of Bath, and forcing a complete restoration of this famous arcade.