Description

CHELTENHAM

SO9422NE ST GEORGE'S PLACE
630-1/9/815 (West side)
14/11/88 Shaftesbury Hall

GV II

Training college. 1869. Red brick with bands of blue brick and
Bath stone dressings, Welsh slate hipped roofs and 2 tall
brick ridge stacks with cornices. Stylistically plain but with
some Ruskinian Venetian Gothic derivation. U-shaped plan with
central block standing proud and matched wings going back and
forming an internal courtyard.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 7-bay front: 1-5-1 fenestration, the
outside bays being the gable ends of the rear wings. Paired
1/1 and 2/2 sash windows to outer 4 bays of main range, with
triple window to centre and to recessed sides, pointed heads
to ground and first floors with alternately coloured
voussoirs, and continuous hoodmould to ground floor,
Caernarvon arches to second floor, chamfered sills, brick
mullions, stone heads continuous drip mould to ground and
first floors. Central entrance with stone Venetian porch,
paired columns with foliated capitals, within a part-glazed
door with sidelights and pointed overlight. Dentil cornice on
heavy brackets. Left-hand wing of 8 bays; right-hand of 12
bays, almost all are paired windows. Courtyard elevations
slightly altered.
INTERIOR: reported as severely plain with simple stairs.
Originally classrooms below and dormitories above but all now
partitioned. Chamfered lambs' tongue stopped ceiling beams on
stone corbel brackets. Built as the women's hall for the
Church of England teacher training college and used as such
1869-1961. It is thus an early specially designed building for
women's education and is contemporary with Girton College,
Cambridge.
The attached hall to the south west is not included.
Occupies a good corner site, forming part of a distinguished
group of Victorian buildings (within the Regency new town)
which include Church of St Matthew (qv) and Library, Museum
and Art Gallery (qv), Clarence Street and Electricity House,
St George's Place (qv).
(Challinor EB: The Story of St Mary's College, Cheltenham:
1978-; List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic
Interest: Department of the Environment: Borough of
Cheltenham: 1983-).

Listing NGR: SO9460622540

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26667432

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)