Cheltenham Ladies College With Attached Walls Railings Gates And Gate Piers

Cheltenham Ladies College with attached walls, railings, gates and gate piers

A college complex on St George's Road, Cheltenham, begun in 1873 with successive additions and alterations documented through to 1927. The original architects included John Middleton (main range to St George's Road), HA Prothero (Montpellier Street wing, 1889-90), LW Bernard (link building), and ER Robson (1896-8, including Princess Hall). A further block facing Bayshill Road was added in 1936. The school relocated to this site in the 1870s.

The building is constructed of rough-faced stone over brick with red and black tile roof, stone end and internal stacks. The design is predominantly in decorative Gothic Domestic style, with the 1936 block employing Cotswold idiom.

The plan forms a quadrangle, with a long wing up to St George's Road by Waller and Son. The main range to St George's Road is largely two storeys with a three-storey centre. The first-floor fenestration comprises eight windows arranged 1:1:2:1:2. To the left is a two-storey, two-bay infill and a one-and-a-half storey lodge. The second and fourth bays of the main range break forwards with off-set buttresses. The exterior features quoins and a chamfered plinth.

Ground-floor windows to the left comprise two-light mullion-and-transom windows with trefoil heads under four-centred arches; those to the right include two two-light windows with straight heads and a panel of carved foliage between, with three-stepped-and-cusped-light mullion and transom windows carrying four-centred arches elsewhere. An off-centre entrance on the right has double pointed doors with glazed traceried lights to the upper part, chamfered head, and triple-chamfered moulded surround. Further pedestrian entrances exist at the right and in the adjoining wall. First-floor windows are mainly two-trefoil-light with quatrefoils to the heads, all carrying gables except to the second bay which has a similar three-light window. Above the main entrance sits a canted and gabled oriel window with three stepped cusped lights. The left range has mullion-and-transom ground-floor windows and three-light mullion windows to the first floor, with off-set buttresses to the ground floor; the central buttress supports a plinth and statue in a niche. A low parapet tops the range.

The lodge at the left features an arcade of five trefoil-headed Romanesque-style windows with granite columnettes between and a continuous trefoiled hoodmould, stepped cornice, and a peaked roof with triangular roof dormers containing trefoil and quatrefoil windows.

The left return facing Montpellier Street is mainly two storeys with some attic storeys to gables, and includes a three-stage tower with tile spire. Windows are predominantly three-light mullion and transom with cusped upper lights; first-floor windows are stepped, while ground-floor windows are straight-headed. The off-centre tower has pointed openings in moulded surrounds and a plank door. South of the Robson block stands a single-storey hall with a buttressed elevation, dentil cornice, mullion windows, dormers, and louvred pyramidal-roofed ventilators facing east.

The interior is noted as retaining original plasterwork, woodwork, and stained glass.

Abutting the main entrance are railings on low chamfered walls with alternate sword-handle finials; two pedestrian gates flank the main entrance and a further pedestrian entrance in the adjoining wall sits between piers with off-sets and cross-gabled and peaked caps. Railings continue along the left return with two further piers. These railings and gatepiers abut those of Fauconberg House, St George's Road.

The complex represents a substantial late Victorian school, its architectural evolution clearly legible in the structure. The earlier parts by Middleton and Prothero are architecturally most notable. The other elevations form a significant and familiar feature of the local streetscape.