The British Crown was on the western corner of St. Pauls Road and Dunalley Street. The building is still standing and in the late 1990’s it was a microwave repair shop, but it is now residential. Apart from its prominent corner position there is little to indicate that it was once a pub.
Philip Marment owned the British Crown in 1891 which he leased to the Cheltenham Original Brewery. The annual rateable value at the time was £20.5s.0d. The British Crown was a beer house. Twelve years later in 1903 the Cheltenham Brewery had bought the pub and the rates per year had increased slightly to £22.0s.0d.
Former landlady Joan Bromage wrote to the ‘Gloucestershire Echo’ in March 2003 recalling her days behind bars in Cheltenham. Mrs Bromage (aged 81 in 2003), was brought up at the Boars Head in Henrietta Street when it was run by her parents Emily and Fred Eaketts. Mrs Bromage wrote: “Does anyone remember the British Crown Tavern in Dunalley Street. I lived there from around 1943 to 1972. In 1972 a pint of ale cost twelve and a half pence. We had coal fires in the bar and the smoke-room, and we used to have jolly sing-songs to the piano, crib-matches and dart matches. The gents’ toilet at one time was out on the street. We didn’t have a bathroom, and our cooking was done in the kitchen and the toilet was in a small place called a scullery which had a stone floor. Much later all these things were altered by the brewery. Beer was delivered by the lovely old shire horses pulling the trucks. Next door was Burke’s skin-yard and there was a bit of a smell from the rabbit skins hanging. But even so, they were the good old days. My late husband and I used to make buttered cheese rolls and sell them for sixpence (with or without onion).”
Landlords at the British Crown include:
1870 Thomas Saville
1878,1883 William Loveridge
1885,1891 Mrs Jane Lane
1902,1919 Frederick James Allsopp
1926,1939 Alfred William Elliott
? Fred and Emily Eakets
1972 Joan Bromage
