Monday 21 January 2008

Royal Crescent

Surprisingly Royal Crescent is the back drop to Cheltenhams bus station, the Royal Well. The bus station is a bit of an eyesore in front of the towns earliest Regency terrace to have survived intact. The Crescent was first designed as two blocks of 12 houses, with a road between, by architect Charles Harecourt Masters at the start of the 1800's. Construction started in 1805 and was completed in the early 1820's, the houses first used as lodgings for visitors using the towns Spas. The Crescent is now used mainly as office space with many Solicitors and Doctors surgeries occupying most buildings. In 1998 the over grown trees and shrubs between the bus station and Crescent were removed, revealing the white curved terrace, and replaced with a Beech hedge and Silver Birch trees as a commemoration of Diana, Princess of Wales who died the year before. The ironwork railings and balconies are one of the features of Royal Crescent and are typical of the Regency buildings in Cheltenham.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely and much nicer than the one in bath. I think it is because it is white.

Your photos are excellent too. I find a lot of CDPB sites belong to photographers and the photos are fantastic but not always relevant or there is a great photo and no commentry so it is nice to find a site with a good combination of both.

FĂ©nix - Bostonscapes said...

Beautiful architecture. I wish we had similar structures here. The very few crescent buildings we have are much smaller and not nearly as nice.

Lori said...

That's beautiful. I've seen the royal crescent in Bath but didn't know about this one. The architecture is so graceful. It must be lovely in person.

Anonymous said...

This is a beautiful terrace and many of the properties are being refurbished. The sooner the bus station is moved to a more appropriate area the better. Its sacrilage the way this terrace has not been appreciated. A Cecil, Cheltenham

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