159 AND 161, HIGH STREET

Nos. 159 and 161 High Street in Cheltenham are two shops with flats above, built around 1790 to 1800, featuring ground-floor shop fronts from the 1970s. The building is constructed of stucco over brick and has a mansard mock roof with iron window guards. It stands three storeys tall and has seven first-floor windows. The stucco detailing includes quoins at the corners above the ground floor on the right side, and the central window on the first floor has a tooled and eared surround with shaped shoulders, a pulvinated frieze, and a pediment. There is also a crowning frieze, cornice, and a low parapet. The first floor has tall 6/6 sash windows, while the second floor features 3/3 sash windows with sills, all set in plain reveals. The building has left end stacks and raised gables.

Notably, four of the right-hand first-floor windows have trellis window guards with a central decorative panel, which Chatwin suggests may have been noted by Fosbroke in 1798. Although the interior was not inspected, the historical context includes mention by George Rowe in his 1845 Guide, where he identifies the shops as belonging to Mr. Forget, a basket maker to Her Majesty, and Mr. Gibbon, a chemist and druggist to the Queen, known for manufacturing soda water and lemonade. Rowe remarked on the handsome frontages of these shops as significant improvements over the old-fashioned low-gabled houses that were still present in the area.