Montpellier Rotunda (Lloyds Bank) Montpellier Rotunda and Pump Room

Details

CHELTENHAM

SO9421NW MONTPELLIER WALK 630-1/17/582 (West side) 12/03/55 Montpellier Rotunda (Lloyd's Bank) (Formerly Listed as: MONTPELLIER WALK Lloyd's Bank Limited)

GV I

Includes: Montpellier Rotunda and Pump Room MONTPELLIER STREET. Pump room with reading room and billiard room, now banking hall. In 1817 the long room and colonnade on south-east were built, architect probably Underwood. Rotunda added 1825-6, architect JB Papworth. Limestone ashlar walls, with copper roof EXTERIOR: colonnade is Doric with slender shafts on raised plinths with attic bases and caps with echinus profiles. Parapet with lion couchant. Circular room roofed with wooden dome coffered internally. Externally covered with copper following hemispherical shape of interior. Proportions similar to Pantheon, and all light entering through lantern. Rear facade has 4+3 windows, 1/1 sashes, off-centre entrance, panelled double doors with sidelights in pilastered surround. INTERIOR: the principal feature is the central single-tall-storey, circular, domed assembly room. Around the lower stage are pairs of Doric pilasters to recesses with frieze of alternate square and oblong panels and entablature, between taller pairs of Corinthian pilasters with panels between each pilaster surmounted by continuous dentil entablature with egg-and-dart moulding. Coffered dome and central circular skylight with central rose and ornate frieze. 3 entrances, part-glazed doors with margin-lights and sidelights with overlights, all curved on section; also 2 further inserted C20 openings. HISTORICAL NOTE: the earliest building at Montpellier was the Pump Room, opened as a wooden structure in 1809 (opened by Henry Thomson) and rebuilt 1817. Papworth's Rotunda was modelled on the Pantheon (Rome) and its proportions are almost the same (56 feet high, 54 feet across). Furnishings were all by Papworth but now unfortunately lost, as are the murals of hunting and country scenes along the corridors. Waters were pumped from 80 surrounding wells from 6am. Papworth came to Cheltenham c1824 and designed a house for Dr Schoolbred; he was retained by Henry Thomson and later his son Pearson Thomson, providing designs for Pearson Thompson's home, Regent

House, Montpellier Drive (qv) and for the Lansdown Estate (later taken over by the Jearrads). Underwood was the architect of the Masonic Hall, 2 Portland Street (qv). Banking on the premises probably dates to 1882 when the Worcester City and County Bank had an agency in one corner of the building. This was taken over by the Capital and Counties Bank, which in turn merged with Lloyds in the early C20. In 1848 Jenny Lind sang here and in 1891 the first performances of Gustav Holst's Scherzo and his Intermezzo were given here. (The Buildings of England: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: London: 1970-: 140-1; Sampson A and Blake S: A Cheltenham Companion: Cheltenham: 1993-: 83; Blake S: 'The Building of the Montpellier Shops': Cheltenham Local History Society Journal: 1984-).

Listing NGR: SO9440421854

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

475319

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Verey, D, The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire 2 The Vale and The Forest of Dean, (1970), 140-1
Sampson, A, Blake, S, A Cheltenham Companion, (1993), 83
Blake, S, Cheltenham Local History Society Journal in The Building of the Montpellier Shops, (1984), 1984

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