The Dove & Rainbow was adjacent to the Welsh Harp and Compasses Inn in New Street. Three pubs in a row! What a compact pub crawl that must have been, you could actually crawl on your hands and knees from one to the other.
John Hoult was the owner of the Dove and Rainbow in 1891 when it was trading free of brewery tie. It seems that Jon Hoult sold the pub to Tayler & Co, brewers at the Cotswold Brewery in Northleach. The Dove and Rainbow was the sole outlet for Tayler’s Cotswold ales in Cheltenham.
Next door the Welsh Harp sold Showell’s beer from Oldbury near Birmingham with the local Chelt Ale on offer at the Compasses. Three pubs, three different breweries at the beginning of the 20th century. The Dove & Rainbow had an annual rateable value of £17.0s.0d. from 1891 to 1903 and held a licence as a beer house.
The last reference that I have relating to the Dove & Rainbow is the listing in the 1939 Kelly’s Directory. The address is given as 34 Burton Street which still applies to the property that for many years has been a private house. In its final years as a pub the Dove & Rainbow was probably owned by the Cheltenham Brewery, the Cotswold Brewery having been acquired by them in 1919.
Landlords at the Dove & Rainbow Inn include:
1844 E. Walker
1870 Richard Best
1878,1883 Jane Best
1891 Joseph Young
1903 Charles Frank Morgan
1939 William James Morgan
