Walthamstow Arcade in 1987 (credit: Alice Mara)

Alice Mara took these photos of the long-demolished Walthamstow Arcade at the age of 15, when she worked a Saturday job in the shopping centre’s Avante Garde hairdressers, earning £7 a day washing hair.

Alice is an artist who recreates buildings in ceramic and said she took the photos because she was already fascinated by “buildings, how people live in them and what happens in them”.

The Arcade was built at the corner of High Street and Hoe Street in the 60s and, after years of growing disrepair, demolished in the early 2000s. For some years it remained an empty plot of land but is now home to Empire Cinema and a number of chain restaurants.

See Alice’s work on her website here: https://www.alicemara.com/

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