I may have found it! Having nothing better to do on a sunny day like today I've gone through all 741 pages of the 1911 census for Bedlington, District 2. It started in Netherton Colliery (where I was surprised not to find a Plessey Street but a "2nd Second Street") before moving on to Bedlington and the Mason's Arms Inn. It then took me for a walk up the High Street (as it was called than), down Glebe Road, up and down a great number of side streets and in and out of many yards before arriving at Glebe ROW (not road). This row has been up for discussion before so we know it was on the right hand side of Glebe ROAD heading towards Choppington. The Arcade seems to have been tucked in between Tankerville Yard and Oliver's buildings and had only 7 dwellings. The Arcade may have been a name given to it by the residents as all use this name when filling in the census form. However, the enumerator himself simply calls it "Glebe Row".
The census took me on a return journey, from the boundary with Choppington via Glebe Road , along Ridge terrace and back, then down Hartford Road, calling in on all side streets, vicarages and police stations (where there were two prisoners) on the way. It continued as far as the Manse before heading off back down the High Street again to The Sun Inn where it somehow headed off towards Hartford bridge and my journey ended. What a lovely day out!
It gave a very different picture from the Bedlington we know today, in terms of housing, work and social conditions. On the one hand we have Hartford House with 32 rooms, inhabited by the mother and one son of the Burdon family together with eight staff (butler included). On the other hand we have the Old Hall, where families of 5 and 6 persons - plus 2 lodgers - are living in 1-2 rooms, or a house in Catholic Row where a mother and her 4 children share their two rooms (one of which is the kitchen) with no less than 3 coalmining lodgers! They must have slept in shifts!
There was a diverse array of occupations outside of mining in Bedlington 1911. Everything from bookmakers to candlemakers, scavengers (working for the UDC), hawkers - one of them at the ripe old age of 84 years - and "colliery heap-keepers" who had "heap-lads" to help them. The mind boggles! I met one "chauffeur" on my journey, umpteen stable hands, a farm bailiff, several foresters and a couple of gamekeepers. It must have been very rural in those days.
Even more surprising was the number of people living in Bedlington who weren't born anywhere in the vicinity. Among its inhabitants in 1911, almost every county in England and Scotland were represented. It must have been a popular place.