Pittville Pump Room

Pump Room, Pittville Park, Cheltenham

Pump room built 1825–30, with restorations and alterations of 1949–60. Designed by architect John Forbes for William Pitt as the centrepiece of the town of Pittville. Described as one of Cheltenham's finest Regency buildings and the largest and grandest of the town's spas.

The building is a severe trabeate structure in Greek Revival style, long considered the finest building in Cheltenham. The design details are based on Stuart and Revett's engravings of the Temple of Illissus. Construction is ashlar over brick with slate roof and copper dome.

The plan is mainly T-shaped, with an apsidal hall. The front section rises through two storeys to the dome, with rear stairs and rooms. The upper stage contains a room to either side of the dome and a rear apsidal room with a corridor between.

The exterior is two storeys with a nine-window first-floor range. The upper stage is set back and has a projecting colonnade around three sides of the ground floor. The returns have five first-floor windows and a full-height bow to the rear. The central breakforward features a slightly projecting six-column portico to the lower colonnade with Ionic columns derived from the Temple of Illissus, continuing to a group in antis at each end return. There is an architrave and parapet with sunk panels. Surmounting figures of Hygeia, Hippocrates and Aesculapius, originally sculpted by Lucius Gahagan of Bath, are replacements of around 1980. The upper stage breakforward has paired pilasters to ends and pilasters between windows throughout, with an architrave and blocking course; the centre is raised as a parapet with similar sunk panels. Tall 6/6 sashes with battered tooled and eared architraves appear throughout. The central entrance comprises six-fielded-panel double doors with an overlight with margin-lights. Further entrances to the sides have double, part-glazed doors with overlights with glazing bars. The dome has windows to its crown.

The interior main hall is T-plan with an apsidal end, rising through two storeys with a square opening featuring a lozenge-and-anthemion with sunbursts to the balustrade around the opening to the dome. Fluted Ionic columns in antis to entrances on three sides and pillars in the apse; there is a dentil architrave. To the ends of the main range are round-arched niches. Coved ceilings feature paterae. An elaborate marble and scagliola pump is central to the hall. The former reading room to the rear right now serves as an entrance lobby and associated spaces. An open-well staircase to the rear left rises the full height with rod and bobbin balusters; the stairwell has a circular skylight with radial glazing bars. A late 20th-century replacement staircase stands to the right. Between the staircases is a corridor with an egg-and-dart cornice and oval skylight. From this corridor, short flights of stairs lead to rooms either side of the dome with shallow apses to ends and three shallow recesses opposite. The room to the right, formerly the library, retains a black marble fireplace with carved embellishments to the corners. The rear apsidal room has a scroll motif to the ceiling frieze. Six- and four-panel doors, some with an incised Greek key motif to the architrave, feature throughout. A staircase to the roof is at the right with stick balusters.

The cellar contains a well with a brick cylindrical shaft approximately 20 metres deep. The iron Old Pump flywheel and crank shaft remain in situ. The casing balustrade has an X-motif and central lion mask. A round-arched tunnel leads to a second well.