84 And 86, Promenade

CHELTENHAM

SO9422SE PROMENADE 630-1/13/745 (South East side) 12/03/55 Nos.84 AND 86

GV II

Pair of terraced houses, now shops. c1820-40 with later additions and alterations including later C19 ground-floor shop front to left (No.84); mid-late C20 shop front to right (No.86). Ashlar, now stuccoed, over brick with slate roof and tall brick end and party-wall stacks (that to centre renewed); rear has red rubbed brick dressings. Double depth plan. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with attics, 6 first-floor windows. Stucco detailing includes: tooled architraves with decorative moulding to first-floor windows, and with roll-moulding to second floor windows; moulded first-floor band embellished with small roundels at left; first-floor sill band with further projecting sills on feet. Crown and dentil entablature and blocking course. 1/1 sashes to first and second floors. Attic roof dormers have pediments, otherwise concealed. Ground floor: to left shop front has tooled pilasters with roundels, frieze and dentil cornice. Otherwise late C20 glazing and entrances. Rear: retains 2/2 horizontal-pane sashes with flat arches of rubbed brick. INTERIOR: original plasterwork includes, to left are remains of anthemion motif to ground-floor cornice. First floor has egg-and-dart cornices. To right, centre 'room' has remains of frieze with anthemion motif to cornice. Hall has remains of frieze with acanthus modillions and fleurons to ground floor and with lilies to frieze to first and second floors. Narrow-open-well staircase from first floor has chamfered stick balusters and mahogany handrail. HISTORICAL NOTE: The Promenade was laid out in 1818 as a tree-lined avenue from the Colonnade in the High Street to the Sherborne Spa (on the site of the Queen's Hotel (qv)). By 1826 it was a carriage drive with spacious gravelled walk on each side. Buildings on the NW were the first to be developed. Although originally on either side were 'rows of elegant houses,' by 1845 when Rowe wrote his Guide (published 1845) he noted that 'nearly the whole of the left-hand (SE) side .. is devoted to professional or business establishments'. (The Buildings of England: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: London: 1970-: 146; Williams GA: Guide Book to Cheltenham: 1824-: 29; Rowe G: Illustrated Cheltenham Guide: Cheltenham: 1850-1969: 12).

Listing NGR: SO9478722250