Landmark toy shop on brink of closure
A landmark toy shop will close down after almost half a century serving families of Dudley unless a new buyer steps forward to save it in the next few months.
Alan Caswell said the work will cause too much upheaval to the layout of his shop and he will bow out in the new year. But Mr Caswell, aged 61, said he hopes a new buyer will come forward to save the business from disappearing for good.
Fountain Arcade is being restored to its former glory and heritage architects want to bring its well-known white entrance off Stone Street back to how it would have looked in its 1920s heyday. But the scheme includes reinstalling a long disused doorway that directly entered the toy shop.
Mr Caswell, who runs the family business with his sister Lynne, said the changes would be too drastic to accommodate. Despite this, he says he understands the work is vital to the regeneration of the town centre. "All the people who have come to the shop have been totally loyal to Dudley and loyal to the shop so I can only thank them from the bottom of my heart," Mr Caswell said. "We didn't want the door to be brought back. It would be too restrictive for us and take up part of the store layout."
Mr Caswell's father, Charles was manager of the original store on the site called Woodworths which sold mainly electrical goods. Alan worked there as a schoolboy for two years before it shut in 1967 and his father and mother Evelyn then decided to takeover the site.
It became Arcade Toy Shop and was run inside two stores on opposite sides of the arcade until 1986, when Mr Caswell says trade was affected by Merry Hill. Only the main store remained and is one of the oldest family-run shops in the town.
