When the ‘beautiful and commodious’ Adelaide Arcade, built in just 5 months, and opened in 1885, ‘to the plaudits of polite Adelaide society’, it was billed as the largest shopping arcade in the Southern Hemisphere. It boosted 50 shops and was one of the first buildings in Adelaide to use electric lighting (having its own generator which I will come back to). Today, even with the subsequent merging of the adjacent Gays Arcade into it, it is small by most standards. It relative size does not distract from its beauty and its worthiness of a little of your time. Continue reading “The Adelaide Arcade”
The Rambling Wombat 