159 AND 161, HIGH STREET

CHELTENHAM

SO9522SW HIGH STREET 630-1/14/407 (North East side) 14/12/83 Nos.159 AND 161

II

2 shops with flats over. c1790-1800 with c1970s ground-floor shop fronts. Stucco over brick with mansard mock roof and iron window guards. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 7 first-floor windows. Stucco detailing includes quoins to angles (above ground floor at right), first-floor central window has tooled and eared surround with shaped shoulders and pulvinated frieze with pediment; crowning frieze, cornice and low parapet. First floor has tall 6/6 sashes; second floor has 3/3 sashes with sills, all in plain reveals. Left end stacks, raised gables. INTERIOR: not inspected. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: 4 right-hand first-floor windows have trellis window guards with central decorative panel, Chatwin surmises these are noted by Fosbroke in 1798. HISTORICAL NOTE: noted by George Rowe in his 1845 Guide as the shops of Mr Forget, Basket Maker to Her Majesty and Mr Gibbon, Chemist and Druggist to the Queen ( 'well known as a manufacturer of ... Soda Water and Lemonade'. Rowe states, 'The handsome frontages of these two establishments may be noticed as the first-fruits of Cheltenham improvements upon the old-fashioned low-gabled houses; two or three specimens of which yet remain'. (Chatwin A: Cheltenham's Ornamental Ironwork: Cheltenham: 1975-1984: 17; Rowe G: Illustrated Cheltenham Guide 1850: Cheltenham: 1845-1969: 2).

Listing NGR: SO9506122421