Hi Geoff,
In the article “‘In the Malthouse’: 400 Years of Malting and Brewing in Cheltenham” in Cheltenham Local History Society journal no. 32, Sally Self writes that The Talbot was “first noted in 1679.” A talbot was a breed of white hunting dog, now extinct, hence the familiar alternative name “The Dog” for the pub. Sally Self also states in her article, “Confusingly, there were Talbot Inns on the south and north side” of the High Street. This one, “the one to the south,” later “had a passageway through to the Theatre (the second Theatre Royal built in Bath Street after the first in York Passage burned down) with its cellars below the auditorium.”
James Garrett, landlord of the White Lion (which the pub had been renamed) in 1837 is recorded as making the “first mixed gender aerial ascent” in a hot air balloon (with a Mrs. Margaret Graham [nee Watson] that year. They launched from Montpellier Gardens, a noted spot for air balloon ascents. In 1828, she had been the first British woman to make a solo ascent. When the two of them went up together in 1837, they took Mrs. Watson’s pet chimpanzee, Mademoiselle Jennie, with them – suspended below the main basket in a smaller basket with a parachute attached. Once they had cleared Lansdown estate, they cut the cord and Mademoiselle Jennie parachuted safely to the ground landing near Lansdown Turnpike Gate (later the site of Lansdown Castle).
I haven’t been able to find out with any degree of certainty where the second Talbot Inn referred to by Sally Self, located north of the High Street stood. [Edit – see the entry for the Restoration Inn] However, in the notes section of James Hodsdon’s article “A 1787 Map of Cheltenham” from Cheltenham Local History Society journal no. 15 of 1999, I did find a plot owned by Corpus Christi College, Oxford further west along the High Street on the north side. I have no idea how long they had owned it, or whether it might equate to the location of the second mystery Talbot Inn, but its position equates to the modern day 64-66 High Street – roughly where the German Kebab shop is at the eastern end of the Strand, opposite the junction with Bath Road.
Kind regards
Alan Jones