Tudor House Hotel, High Street, Tewkesbury - Glo'shire Pubs & Breweries

The Tudor House Hotel is on the western side of the High Street to the north of the town centre. It is a wonderful half timbered building with its foundations dating from 1540. The main building is 17^th century. The house was given a new front elevation in 1701 and restored again in 1897. On the door leading to the garden there are axe marks reputedly made by Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers. The Tudor House became a hotel in 1926.

The local writer and broadcaster John Moore (born at Uplands on the outskirts of Tewkesbury) spent his childhood years at the Tudor House. His books are set in and around Tewkesbury and recall the town between the first and second world wars. John Moore died in 1967. He is best remembered for the trilogy Portrait of Elmbury, Brensham Village and the Blue Field. He once described the Tudor House as one of the finest buildings in Tewkesbury.

The Tudor House is said to be haunted by a maid, grey lady and the sound of a drummer boy. A grey lady has been known to seemingly tuck female guests into their beds. She is believed to be the ghost of a young servant girl who was transferred from a house in Cheltenham to the Tudor House, which was then a private residence. The story goes that her mistress was cruel to her and, as a result, she became so unhappy that she threw herself out of a top floor window in the servants’ quarters into the garden below. The faint sound of drums are occasionally heard at the Tudor House which is believed to be a drummer boy. However, on the night of Boxing Day 1997 the staff and guests were all woken up at 2.30 in the morning by the sound of a kettle drum which continued for almost an hour.

The Citizen: Gloucestershire Home Buyer, Thursday December 1^st 1983 – At last drinks flow: A 16^th century black and white Gloucestershire hotel has finally shed its old fashioned temperance image. After a lavish £60,000 spending programme at the Tudor House in Tewkesbury, the drinks are now flowing freely from its very first fully-licensed bar. Owner Mr David Wild, who bought the historic premises in the spring, pulled the first pints and mixed the commemorative cocktails. He said, “No longer will tourists be able to take a chuckle at a rare piece of eccentricity … an English hotel that didn’t sell drinks.

The oak panelled Tudor House, part of which dates from 1540, is one of Tewkesbury’s best known landmarks. Axe scars made by Cromwell’s soldiers can still be seen on an outer door. The building was a courtroom in the reign of James I and later it became an academy, with one of its pupils subsequently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. In more recent years the eight-bedroom Tudor House was a temperance hotel.