Laundry
If the previous management undertook laundry for other people or premises as an income stream this would certainly have stopped under the council’s ownership although it may well have done the laundry for other council properties as it certainly did so in later years.
The Corporation of Cheltenham appears to have made minimal changes to the laundry after their purchase. The 1899 floor plan* appears to show a new window in the left hand wall of each room but as these rooms were at a lower ground floor level than the rest of the building it’s likely that these windows gave onto the laundry’s flat roof to provide natural light to two new corridors in the wash baths rather than the laundry. The one definite change appears to be the addition of two inch steam pipes within the existing drying oven which may have improved drying times.
The drying oven consisted of four tall, narrow airing racks which were moved in and out of the warm oven by means of tracks in the floor and would have been very similar to a surviving example in the laundry of Berrington Hall in Herefordshire.
NTPL Commissioned (NTPL) ©National Trust Images/Nadia Mackenzie
We know that when the Baths reopened in September 1900 the laundry was manned by one laundress and that in October 1902 the borough surveyor was instructed by the Mineral Waters Committee to ‘have an available space enclosed and fitted up to form a chamber for heating bath wraps’. Was the drying oven alone not sufficient to keep up with demand? After this, there are no further references to the laundry in council minutes until 1921 when Nurse Dudley, then on trial as an assistant masseuse, was given three shillings as a laundry allowance indicating that staff weren’t entitled to free use of the facilities. The minutes are then silent about the laundry until July 1943 when the Town Improvement Committee note that ‘having regard to the noise and inconvenience caused to the medical baths by the use of the laundry, the Committee be recommended to give consideration to the removal of the same to a more suitable site as soon as possible’.
Two months later, the borough surveyor reported that consideration had been given to the centralisation of the laundry work carried out at both Alstone Baths and Montpellier Baths and recommended that one of the two laundresses from the latter be transferred to Alstone and that, for a trial period, the majority of the work should also be carried out there. The trial does not appear to have been a success – although why not is not recorded – as by December the Health & Holiday Resort Committee are requesting the provision of cloak room for the two launderesses as the room they used was needed for improvements about to be undertaken to the medical baths. The borough surveyor solved this by the simple means of small hooks fixed to the wall of the drying oven together with a small covered board and dust curtains!
If the trial had been successful, it was proposed to renovate the existing laundry at Alstone which committee minutes show was just 10 years old. There is no mention in any of the minutes of renovations to the Montpellier laundry since the council took ownership 44 years previously. Had it really remained virtually untouched?
Work continued as previously at the laundry but the writing was on the wall and it was only to struggle on for a few more years.
* the 1899 floor plan shows the renovations the council were going to make having purchased the property and therefore shows the building as it was when it reopened in 1900; it also shows some amendments of 1907.
55 Bath Road (the corner shop)
Fruiterer and/or Post Office
Robert Steel sold his fruit business to Mr C Scrivens in late 1899 yet according to the Cheltenham Annuaire of 1901 the corner shop is now a branch post office. This seems curious. Would Scrivens really have bought Steel out (who was retiring anyway) merely to gain the tenancy of the shop and not continue the business? There was no certainty that the council would have accepted Scrivens tenancy automatically, especially while they were renovating the baths next door and could have thought about using the shop themselves. It seems more likely that Scrivens opened the post office as part of the fruit offering, perhaps becoming more of a general store.
In autumn 1910 Scrivens asked for a reduction in his rent and despite the council offering to bring it down from £48 to £40 he went back again and asked them to reduce it to £30! This resulted in the council giving Scrivens notice to quit by 25 March at the end of his tenancy. Scrivens was late with his rent in January 1911 but despite the earlier ultimatum he is still in the shop in May when the Mineral Waters Committee note that he will finally be vacating the premises in June when the annual rent will be fixed at £45. In July, Mrs Scrivens writes to the council to ask whether they might be interested in buying the vacated shop fittings which she believes has a value of £12 and 10 shillings and the council make an offer. The use of the word ‘vacated’ clearly indicates they have left and the premises is now empty but the Cheltenham Annuaire curiously shows Mr C Scrivens operating a branch post office from the shop in 1912 and right through until 1915.
In March 1913 plans were also drawn up for an arrangement between the council and United Chemists for the latter to take out a 21-year lease on both the shop and stores adjoining to be used for the bottling of mineral waters. Although an arrangement was eventually agreed the use of the shop was no longer part of the deal.
Fruit & Vegetable Store
The next known tenant, in April 1917, was a Mr E Pitchford, a ‘fruit grower from Evesham’ who took a month-to-month tenancy of the shop and cellars at 25 shillings per month plus rates. In December that year the council agreed to let the shop on a quarterly basis to both Pitchford and Messrs E J Barrett & Sons (priced at £25 per annum) for use as a ‘fruit and vegetable store’. It was not open to the public and it’s not known how long they remained here.
Lock-Up Shop
In April 1920 a Mr Stanley offered £25 for its use as a lock-up shop but withdrew his offer a few weeks later. He reappeared that autumn to repeat his offer and this time signed a lease with the council in October. Despite this, he soon afterwards gave notice of his intention to leave before the end of the year – clearly, he was somewhat unreliable!
Confectioner and Tobacconist
Having been annoyed by Mr Stanley the council were wary about future tenants. In March 1920 a Mr F Farin applied to take a lease on the corner shop as a confectioner and tobacconist which was declined; he made further offers in both April and May which were also declined, as was another offer from a Mr H Fry. However, in August they did agree to Henry Bellamy becoming tenant, strangely enough in the same line of business as the unsuccessful Mr Farin. Bellamy is there until April 1921 when the council give a yearly tenancy to Mrs F Vellacott who wished to take over Bellamy’s business and lease. They no doubt hoped they now had a long-term tenant.
Confectioner and General Shop
They didn’t. Just two months later Vellacott sold the business to Miss Gertrude Dymond and the council agreed to yet another transfer of the lease. Dymond remained until the end of 1925 at which point the lease transferred again. Kelly’s Cheltenham Directory still shows Dymond running the shop in its publication for 1926; this makes sense as it will have gone to press before the tenancy transferred at the end of the year. However, this does not explain why the Cheltenham Annuaire still shows Dymond there in 1927 when she most certainly wasn’t.
Fruiterer
The transfer of the lease to Herbert Reece at the end of 1925 meant the council finally found a reliable, long-term tenant for the corner shop as he remained here well into the next period of its history.
1 Oriel Road
This remained as a private residence throughout this period. The tenant in 1930 was a Mrs Stokes and in 1931 a Mrs Orford. From 1932 Herbert Reece from the corner shop next door used this as his home.
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