Chapel Street is a no-through road situated off New Street and running parallel, and immediately behind, Ambrose Street. There is a row of terraced houses on the western side which might have once housed the Express Inn.
The Express Inn was owned by Corpus Christi College of Oxford in 1891 and 1903 and leased to the Cheltenham Original Brewery. Licensed as a beer house it had an annual rateable value of £18.10s.0d. in 1891 decreasing one pound and ten shillings to £17.0s.0d. in 1903.
The pub might have once been called the Hole in the Wall, which was listed at 5 Chapel Street in the 1870’s.
Hi Geoff,
The Express Inn which you have listed for Chapel Street must have run right through to Ambrose Street, because I found it listed under Ambrose Street in the 1902 Built-Leonard Directory (with Charles Wellan as landlord, whom you have for 1903). The listing running from south to north along the west side of Ambrose Street runs:
“Railway Hotel – T. Evans
1&2 Brookes Temperance Hotel
3 Mrs. Smith dressmaker
4 Mrs. Bird
5 J. Watkins
6 Mrs. MacVitie
7&8 MacVitie, sanitary plumber, decorator, &c.
Express Inn – C. Wellan”
I believe this would have put the Express Inn a couple of doors further along Chapel Street than the Hole in the Wall.
The Express Inn was listed again in the 1904 Built-Leonard Directory, again under Ambrose Street, only this time the landlord was F.G. Oliver
I couldn’t find a listing for the Express Inn in either Ambrose Street or Chapel Street after this.
Cheers,
Alan Jones
Landlords at the Express Inn include:
1891 Augustus Holtham
1903 Charles Wellan