Sadness as historic Black Country toy shop closes after almost a century
A toy shop that has served generations of youngsters has closed.
The Arcade Toy Shop in Dudley's Fountain Arcade closed earlier this month after almost 100 years in the town.
It is understood the business had been hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown.
The news comes less than 18 months after another famous shop, Kirner Jewellers, closed its shop in the arcade. Kirner had been in Dudley for 164 years before its closure in October 2020.
In its heyday in the 1970s and 80s, the Arcade Toy Shop had two branches on opposite sides of the arcade, and was famed for its revolving electric display of the latest Dinky and Corgi cars.
It was given a major revamp in 2015 as part of a £590,000 scheme to restore historic buildings around the town.
Originally known as Woodworths, the Arcade Toy Shop was opened in 1925 by the Smith family, one of the first businesses in the new Fountain Arcade.
It was managed by the Caswell family from 1947 to 2015, and Alan Caswell, who retired from the shop seven years ago, said he was greatly saddened to see it disappear.
The shop was taken over by Dave Carter and Martyn Perry following Mr Caswell's retirement.
Woodworths originally had a chain of four shops, with branches also in Stourbridge, Lye and Wolverhampton.
The chain closed in 1967, but the Dudley shop was saved by Charles Caswell and Harry Harper.
Mr Caswell had joined the shop in 1946, becoming manager the following year. Shortly after Woodworths closed, it reopened under a partnership with Harry Harper who kept the florist shop opposite.
Mr Caswell ran the shop with his wife Evelyn, taking full control in 1974. Their son Alan, who started work as a Saturday assistant at Woodworths in 1965, took over the running of the business in the late 1970s. Alan was also a founder of the Toymaster group, a buying consortium for independent toy retailers.
He also had a distribution arrangement with Cradley Heath based Hawk Cycles, putting him in charge of seven counties.
The shop won the Toy Shop of the Year award in 1989.
Alan Caswell told the Express & Star that the shop had been a huge part of his life, and he was greatly saddened to see it close.
"I was so happy in that shop, I spent nearly 50 years of my life in their," said Alan Caswell, who lives in Pattingham.
"Dudley people are the salt of the earth, I love Dudley and I'm really, truly saddened to see it go."
He said many of the customers he had been serving in the years before his retirement were the grandchildren of his first customers in the 1960s.
When he took over the shop, Mr Carter said he had fond memories of visiting the shop as a child.
“I can’t quite believe we now own the toy shop which we used to visit as kids," he said.
“We have had so many people coming in saying how glad they are that it is staying as a toy shop so they can carry on the tradition of buying their children and grandchildren toys from the town.”
