Description

CHELTENHAM

SO9422SE ROYAL CRESCENT 630-1/13/792 Nos.1-18 (Consecutive) 12/03/55 and attached area railings

GV II*

Terrace of 18 houses, hotels and boarding houses, now offices, surgeries and club, with flats and attached area railings. Numbered right to left, described left to right. c1806-10 by C Harcourt Masters of Bath with later single-storey extension to left; railings and balconies supplied by John Bradley of Worcester. Developed for Joseph Pitt. Stucco over brick with double pitch, slate roof; brick and stucco party-wall stacks; wrought- and iron balconies, verandahs and railings. A symmetrical, concave terrace of double-depth plan houses with mainly 3-lower-storey service ranges to rear; staircase hall to side. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and basement, 3 first-floor windows each; 3-window return to left and 4-window return to right. Stucco detailing includes rustication to ground floors except to Nos 2 and 3; first- and second-floor bands; tooled architraves to first-floor windows of Nos 4 and 12; crowning cornice. Mainly 6/6 sashes where original, taller to first floor, some 2/2 horizontal-pane sashes; all in plain reveals and with sills. Basements have 3/6 sashes where original. Entrances: 9 to right and 9 to left, flights of roll-edged steps where original to mainly 6-fielded-panel doors with fanlights, some with batwing and circle glazing bars, all in round-arched plain reveals. Rear has 6/6 and 8/8 sashes, some tripartite windows with 6/6 between 2/2 sashes. Right return has 4 first-floor windows; ground-floor rustication, first- and second-floor bands. Ground floor has 2/2 horizontal-pane sashes with lugs; first and second floors have 6/6 sashes. Left return has three first-floor windows and single-storey outshut, 6/6 and 2/2 sashes. INTERIOR: original plasterwork and joinery remains to many interiors. No.12 retains most of its original interior details: dogleg staircase has stick balusters and wreathed handrail, fireplaces, cornices with acanthus motifs, reeded doorcases with corner rosettes, some marble fireplaces, those to first floor with Classical scene. No.1 has embellished cornices to hall, ceiling frieze and lion masks, narrow open-well staircase with stick balusters; No.11 has inner double doors with wide batwing and circle glazing bars. Panelled shutters to many windows. Otherwise not inspected. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Nos 1-9 and 11-14 have long balconies

(verandahs to Nos 1 and 6) with sticks and oval panel, with borders of half-circle and lozenge, the design used on the second Assembly Rooms and similar to those at Nos 54-60 Winchcombe Street (qv); verandahs have uprights with similar motifs and openwork friezes. Nos 15-18 have lattice motif (verandah to No.16 has similar motif to uprights and lattice frieze). Right return has individual balconies to first- and second-floor windows with similar rods. One window to first-floor of left return has individual balcony with lattice motif. Spearhead area railings, those to Nos 9 and 10 incorporate brackets for oil lamps. Balconies and railings provided by John Bradley of Worcester. Nos 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18 have scrolled boot scrapers. HISTORICAL NOTE: built as fashionable lodgings for visitors to the Spa; the Duke of Gloucester lived at No.18 when he was visited by Princess Victoria in 1830; No.11 was the home of Dr Henry Charles Boisragan, Physician Extraordinary to the King, among whose other fashionable patients was, in 1812, Lord Byron. The Crescent originally looked out onto Crescent Gardens, interrupted in 1826 by the erection of the Promenade. Little thought the interiors 'the best .. in the town'. 'The earliest important terrace in Cheltenham', (Verey). (Chatwin A: Cheltenham's Ornamental Ironwork: Cheltenham: 1975-1984: 19,23,61; Sampson A and Blake S: A Cheltenham Companion: Cheltenham: 1993-: 94-5,111; The Buildings of England: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: London: 1970-: 149; Little B: Cheltenham: London: 1952-: 52; Radford S: The Terraced Houses of Cheltenham 1800-1850: 1992-: 17-25).



Listing NGR: SO9466722414

External Links

• Wikidata Q17535730

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