Paris House

CHELTENHAM

SO9422SE PROMENADE 630-1/13/753 (South East side) 05/05/72 Nos.108-118 (Even) Paris House

GV II

Boarding house, c1820-34, altered to shops, c1876-99. With C20 alterations. Stucco over brick with concealed roof, stucco end and rear stacks with cornices and wrought-iron balconies. PLAN: original range has central 3-window breakforward; ground floor now has row of projecting shop fronts which continue to returns. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, 5 first-floor windows, with further range at left. First floor retains original stucco detailing: breakforward articulated by 3/4-engaged Ionic columns to ends and between windows; end Doric pilasters; continuous entablature and blocking course. First floor has 6/6 sashes in plain reveals and tooled architraves with sill band. Ground floor shop fronts articulated by rusticated pilasters, frieze and dentil cornice, where original; now with plate-glass windows with glass doors to left; cambered-arched, tripartite windows with slender mullions and recessed, glazed door to left entrance at centre, otherwise shops have glazed shop fronts and frieze, that to left with frosted glass and margin-lights. INTERIOR: retain some original features including rear skylight to stairwell with panes of frosted glass with margin-lights. A stretch of deep coving and pilaster. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: balustrade over projecting shops at left part has stick balusters and embellished panels. To right part and continuing to right return a balustrade with web and scrolled lozenge motif. HISTORICAL NOTE: Paris House is shown on Merrett's 1834 Map as a single build with Belgrave House, Imperial Square (qv). The Ionic columns and Doric pilasters were originally to full height. Rowe's Guide illustrates a balcony to ground floor with web motif which may have been re-used in part. In 1845 when Rowe wrote his Cheltenham Guide (published 1850) he noted this as 'Mesdames Haydon and Shaw's Boarding House (which) occupies a conspicuous position at the corner of Imperial Square. .. the internal accommodations are on the best scale'. The Promenade was laid out in 1818 as a tree-lined drive to the Sherborne Spa, on the site of the Queen's Hotel, to the Colonnade in the High Street; 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 Rowe noted, '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: 10-11, 19(ILLUS)).

Listing NGR: SO9475222186