The Ellenborough Hotel stood on the corner of Oriel Road and the junction with Wellington Street. It was demolished in the 1960’s but replaced with a sensitive rebuild based on similar architectural style. The impressive hotel entrance was up a flight of stone steps within an ornamental iron work and glass canopy designed by Charles Hancock, a craftsman from renowned local firm H.H. Martyn.
The booklet ‘Gloucestershire Inns’, published in 1924, gave the following account of the Ellenborough Hotel: ‘Another Cheltenham hotel strangely recalls Great Britain’s Eastern possession, ‘the brightest jewel in Britannia’s crown.’ The Ellenborough hotel was so named from the fact it was once the town house of the Earl of Ellenborough, Governer-General of India in the ‘40’s’ of the last century (he died at his country house, Southam, near Cheltenham, in 1871). It was he who insisted that the control of India be taken from the East India Company and vested in the Crown. His town house, now the hotel referred to, was the scene of many splendid social functions, for which the size and arrangement of its many rooms admirably adapted it. In the stained-glass transome over the front door may still be seen the family coat of arms, while the garden at the rear retains the pleasure-walks laid out by its distinguished owner nearly eighty years ago.’
The Ellenborough Hotel was unlicensed, however an advertisement noted that the management ‘can obtain most wines, etc. for you’.
