Hotel On The Park

This is a villa, now a hotel, dating to around 1830 and originally built for Theodore Gwinnet, a solicitor. Later additions and alterations were made, including a rear extension in 1993. The building is constructed of brick with stucco facades, and has a hipped slate roof with tall brick stacks that have cornices. It is arranged with a double-depth plan and a central hallway.

The exterior is three storeys high with an attic, featuring five first-floor windows, and a lower two-storey, single-bay section to the right. The end window bays project forward. Stucco detailing includes a plinth, Doric pilasters extending through the ground and first floors, topped by an entablature, with further pilasters to the second floor, a cornice, and a blocking course. Ground and first-floor windows are framed by tooled architraves. A central distyle Ionic porch, with a pulvinated frieze, modillion cornice, and blocking course, now has side walls and glazing with margin lights. The entrance features a six-panel door with sidelights and a cambered overlight with batwing and circle glazing bars. Windows throughout are generally 6/6 sashes, with the ground floor having taller 1/1 sashes, all set in plain reveals and with sills. The left return facade has four window bays with blind openings and Doric pilasters between them. At the rear, a tall round-arched staircase window features a 6/6 sash with radial glazing to the head.

The interior retains original joinery, including six-fielded-panel doors in reeded architraves with fleurons to the corners, and fielded-panel shutters to the windows. Original plasterwork remains, with acanthus modillions in the hall and embellished cornices and ceiling friezes in the ground-floor rooms; the room on the right has a grape motif. A narrow, open-well staircase has carved tread ends, stick balusters, and an unwreathed handrail. Marble fireplaces are also present.

The villa was built as part of a larger development undertaken for Joseph Pitt between 1825 and 1842. Theodore Gwinnet previously had Albion House, North Place, built around 1805. The hotel occupies a prominent corner location on one of the main roads leading into Cheltenham.