Greyhound Inn, North Street, Cheltenham

Hi Geoff,

 

You appear to have two listings for the Greyhound Inn, North Street, Cheltenham.

 

One says its existence was identified in 1844 by Martin Edwards, landlord W. Salisbury and probably located somewhere near Boots or Primark; the other saying that you only have three references between 1830 and 1859 giving landlords 1830 John Shotten, 1856 Mrs. A Goodrich and 1859 George Mickelwright, saying exact location to be determined.

 

I think I might be able to tidy things up a bit for you. John Shotten is definitely recorded in Pigot’s Directory of 1830 as landlord of the “Greyhound Tavern & Public House, North Street” and the 1844 Harper’s Directory lists the Greyhound as being on the east side of North Street after no. 2, which is home to “Ballinger, hairdresser.” This would have located it as the second property along where Boots is now (though before Boots took it over, a long, slim bank building used to exist in North Street).

 

I believe that North Street was formerly known as Greyhound Lane – presumably because of the pub being located there. But here’s the rub – for some reason, the Greyhound Inn moved…and it moved to pretty much the other end of the road into what became North Place. I guess this happened either because of development to widen the road, or development of newer buildings, but I am not sure exactly when. The street though was already being referred to as North Street, rather than Greyhound Lane, long before the pub’s final demise (the name North Street is used in the 1847 Hunt & Co. Directory, for instance, and in the 1850 Rowe’s Illustrated Cheltenham Guide. Strangely, Greyhound Lane seemed to make a comeback later in certain directories though.

 

Even before I spent hours pouring over old directories though, I happened upon an interesting reference online: papers relating to “the compulsory purchase” of “The Greyhound Inn, 9 North Street, Cheltenham for road widening.” But these documents were dated 13th May 1879…and no. 9, that didn’t seem to fit with the pub being located immediately after no. 2 in 1844. I was confused. 

 

So I set about pouring over old directories and doing more research and reading. And what I discovered was this. In an article in the Cheltenham Local History Society Journal no. 32 from 2016, entitled In the Mault House: 400 Years of Brewing in Cheltenham by Sally Self, she states that the “Greyhound Inn [was] named this in 1763 for the first time.” I don’t know if that means an inn already existed but operated under a different name, or if this was when the inn was first opened and called the Greyhound, but either way, it gives us a genesis for the Greyhound Inn earlier than we had previously, and perhaps makes understandable why the road was called Greyhound Lane (its probably being little more than a lane off the High Street at that time). 

 

In old directories, I found the following listed to add to 1830 John Shotten and 1844 W. Salisbury:

 

1847 Hunt & Co. Directory, Greyhound. Hemmin Thos. North Street (no number)

1848 & 1850 Edward’s Directory, Greyhound, Holland, G. North-street (no number)

1851 & 1852 Edward’s Directory, Greyhound, Dufour, J. North street (no number)

1853 Annuaire Greyhound Inn, R. Meyrick…North street (no number)

1854 Annuaire Bonnewell W., Greyhound Inn .. North street (no number)

1855 Annuaire Goodrich B., Greyhound Inn .. North street (no number)

1856 & 1857 Annuaire Goodrich E., Greyhound Inn .. North street (no number)

1858 Annuaire Goodrich A., Greyhound Inn .. North street (no number)

1859 – 1861 Annuaire Greyhound Inn, G. Micklewright .. North street (no number)

 

1862 Greyhound Inn, ———– North street (no name or number)

 

1863 Greyhound Inn, C. Wallis .. North street (no number)

 

The next directory I had access to was the 1867 Annuaire and the Greyhound wasn’t listed. Nor in the 1868 Annuaire.

 

The next directory I had access to was the 1872-3 Royal Directory, and in that under “North Street” was listed “GREY HOUND, Mr. Hathaway” (no number)

 

In the 1876 Royal Directory the Greyhound Inn in Hewlett’s Street (Hewlett Road) was listed, nothing appeared under Greyhound or Grey Hound in North Street – except in brackets after North St. it gave the old name i.e. “North St. (Greyhound Lane)” – but no pub by that name was listed! I did check no. 9 – bearing in mind the 1879 documents for the compulsory purchase order of the Greyhound Inn cited that as the address – but the listing ran:

 

“9   Thomas Lusty, gilder &c.

 9A Thomas Ayers, bootmaker

 9B T. N. Hedge, confectioner”

 

It seems the Greyhound Inn or GREY HOUND ceased trading between 1872 and 1875.

 

So it seems like the Greyhound Inn had existed on the east side of Greyhound Lane (later North Street) just off the High Street from 1763 – though the premises might have existed prior to that by another name)…at some point had moved to the other end and other side of the street (Albion House, the site of the old Liberal Club and now Albion Social Club was at no. 7 North Street, so beyond this into what is now called North Place, where there is a car park); continued trading there until the mid-1870s, and then the building was purchased under compulsory purchase order to widen the road.

 

To top all of this off, when I did finally get to access the 1855-7 Old Town Survey map, “The GreyHound Inn P.H.” was clearly marked on that – still on the east side not far off the High Street at that time, so I am guessing that perhaps the move happened between 1860 and 1862 – the year no name was given in the Annuaire of a landlord or landlady…and that the Greyhound only lasted in its new location at no. 9 North Street – a couple of numbers past Albion House – for a little over a decade, after which the building itself was lost to road widening and most of the site is now a car park.

 

How’s that for a saga? …And still you won’t believe just how long it took me to dig all that up and put the pieces together. 

 

There was another beneficial outcome though – in doing that research, I also discovered where another pub that didn’t have a known location on the gloucestershirepubs website was located – The Oddfellows Arms, which at the time of writing is listed as Albion Street / North Street. I will update on that one next.