Details
CHELTENHAM
SO9422SE ST GEORGE'S ROAD
630-1/13/821 (South side)
05/05/72 Cheltenham Ladies College with
attached walls, railings, gates and
gate piers
GV II
College with attached railings, walls and piers. 1873 with
later additions and alterations including 1876, 1881-2, 1884,
1887, 1890, 1893-4, 1898, 1904, 1907, 1909, 1913 and 1927.
Architects: John Middleton (including main range to St
George's Road), HA Prothero (1889-90 Montpellier Street wing),
LW Bernard (link building), ER Robson (1896-8, further
additions including Princess Hall). Rough-faced stone over
brick with red and black tile roof, stone end and internal
stacks. Mostly in decorative Gothic Domestic style.
PLAN: a quadrangle with a long wing up to St George's Road by
Waller and Son; further block to Bayshill Road 1936, also in
Cotswold idiom.
EXTERIOR: range to St George's Road: main range of 2 storeys,
with 3-storey centre, 8 first-floor windows arranged
1:1:2:1:1:2; with 2-storey, 2-bay infill at left and
one-and-a-half storey lodge to far left. Main range: 2nd and
4th (entrance) bays break forwards and have off-set
buttresses. Quoins, chamfered plinth. Ground floor, to left
are 2-light mullion-and-transom, trefoil-headed windows under
4-centred arches; at right are two 2-light windows with
straight-headed windows and panel of carved foliage between,
otherwise 3-stepped-and-cusped-light mullion and transom
windows with 4-centred arches. Off-centre right entrance:
double pointed doors with glazed traceried lights to upper
part with chamfered head and triple-chamfered moulded
surround. Further pedestrian entrance at right with plank door
and similar pedestrian entrance to wall at far right. First
floor: mainly 2-trefoil-light windows with quatrefoils to
heads, all with gables over, except to second bay a similar
3-light window. Over entrance a canted and gabled oriel window
with 3 stepped cusped lights. Range at left has mullion and
transom ground-floor windows and 3-light mullion windows to
first floor. Off-set buttresses to ground floor, that to
centre supports plinth and statue in niche. Low parapet. Lodge
at left has arcade of 5 trefoil-headed Romanesque-style
windows and granite columnettes between, with continuous
trefoiled hoodmould. Stepped cornice. Peaked roof with
triangular roof dormers with trefoil and quatrefoil windows.
Left return (to Montpellier Street). Mainly 2 storeys, some
attics to gables, and 3-stage tower with tile spire. Mainly
3-light mullion and transom windows, the upper lights cusped,
windows to first floor are stepped, those to ground-floor are
straight-headed. Off-centre tower has pointed openings in
moulded surrounds and plank door. To south of Robson block is
a single-storey hall which has buttressed elevation with
dentil cornice and mullion windows, with dormers and louvred
pyramidal-roofed ventilators, facing east.
INTERIOR: noted as retaining original plasterwork, woodwork
and stained glass.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: abutting entrance are railings on low
chamfered walls have alternate sword handle finials with 2
pedestrian gates to right and left of main entrance and
further pedestrian entrance in wall at left between piers with
off-sets and cross-gabled and peaked caps. Railings continue
to left return with 2 further piers.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the school moved to this site in the 1870s.
Walls abut Railings and Gatepiers to Fauconberg House, St
George's Road (qv).
A large, late Victorian school complex, the evolution of which
can be clearly read in the structure, but which is
architecturally most notable for the earlier parts by
Middleton and Prothero; the other elevations form a
significant and familiar feature of the streetscape.
(The Buildings of England: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale
and The Forest of Dean: London: 1970-: 136; Illustrated Guide
to the Cheltenham Ladies' College: 1931-).
Listing NGR: SO9455922094
