Plaque 12 is in the pavement outside Zizzi, approaching the Charles St/Broadway entrance to the Broadway shopping centre and is sponsored by The Broadway.
“Water sighs, eddies, races
Unseen, unremarked”
Where the austere walls of Arndale House tower above you once stood one of Bradford’s handsomest Victorian buildings, Swan Arcade. It housed up-market retailers and firms of wool brokers. The writer J B Priestley was employed here after he left school, and although he found the work dull he admired Swan Arcade itself.
The arcade’s doors closed for the last time in 1962 and demolition began the following day to make way for a more modern building. Priestley campaigned vigorously to save it but by then he had left Bradford and his opinion counted little.
Thus on 10th December 1963, Yorkshire and England fast bowler Fred Trueman ceremonially topped out Arndale House, one of Bradford’s aesthetically inferior buildings. Let’s remember Trueman for his cricket.
