Oriel Lodge

Oriel Lodge is a villa dating from approximately 1820-1825, with later additions and alterations including a 1970s attic storey and a range to the rear. It was designed by Edward Jenkins, the architect of St James's Church, for Charles Timins, a retired East India Company sea captain. The villa is constructed of stucco over brick with a concealed roof and an iron balcony, and is built in a picturesque Tudor Gothic style. It has a double depth plan with a central hall and a service range to the rear.

The exterior is two storeys high with attic space, and features three first-floor windows. The front elevation has ornamental crenellations and corner turrets built on octagonal "buttresses," a gabled central breakforward with pinnacles and finials. A tierceron vaulted porch has three columnettes and a roll-moulded head to a four-centre-arched opening, with a hollow-chamfered hoodmould and face stops. On either side of the porch are four-pane lights within pointed surrounds, with cusped glazing bars to the head and roll-moulded surrounds. A flight of five roll-edged steps leads to a four-centre-arched opening with two orders of arches on pilasters, a hoodmould with headstops, and part-glazed double doors with upper cusped lights and lower linenfold panels with quatrefoils, set within an architrave with fluted mock column clusters. Above the porch is a crenellated oriel window with mullioned lights in a 1:2:1 configuration, with multi-pane casements and pointed-arched glazing bars to the heads. Most of the ground-floor windows are three-light mullion and transom windows, while first-floor windows are two-light mullion windows, all with multi-pane casements, pointed-arched glazing bars to the heads, and hoodmoulds, with decorative aprons to the ground-floor windows. Quatrefoil decoration appears on the gable. The left return has two windows and a similar fenestration; the right return has three windows, with two tall two-light mullion and transom windows to the ground floor and first floor, continuing the three-storey fenestration.

Inside, the hallway features a rib-vaulted ceiling on column clusters and a central rose. Original joinery includes part-glazed doors with cusped lights and traceried panels below, and windows with reeded architraves and fleurons to the angles, along with panelled shutters with quatrefoil motifs. An open newel staircase has turned balusters and carved newel posts. Plasterwork remains, particularly in the front ground-floor rooms, with an acanthus cornice and a scroll ceiling frieze. A balcony with embellished rods and quatrefoil panels is located on the right return.

Oriel Lodge is considered to be one of Cheltenham's earliest "Gothic" villas, alongside Priory Lawn and Priory Place. It appeared on a map from 1825, and the now demolished Cambray Spa, originally sited opposite, was designed in a similar style.