Topography

Although to one writer Gloucester in 1841 seemed unaffected by the building mania prevalent elsewhere, (fn. 1) the redevelopment and physical growth that would transform the city in the 19th and 20th centuries was then already under way. By 1850 the appearance of the main streets was dominated by brick and stucco fronts and large shop windows. A few timber fronts were visible, and among those to have disappeared was that of the New Inn in Northgate Street. (fn. 2) Prominent new buildings included those of the Gloucestershire Banking Co. in Eastgate Street and the County of Gloucester Bank in Westgate Street, at the corner of College Court, both built in the late 1830s in classical style. (fn. 3) Higher up Westgate Street the former house of the banker James Wood was replaced in 1843 by a building in a 14th-century Gothic style for the National Provincial Bank. (fn. 4) The city's architecture was also enriched by the rebuilding in 1847 and 1850 of chapels in Parker's Row (later Brunswick Road) and lower Southgate Street. (fn. 5) Buildings added to Worcester Street after 1835 included several houses, (fn. 6) a circular room erected in 1836 for a circus, (fn. 7) and a nonconformist chapel which on becoming an Anglican school in 1847 was given windows in a Gothic style. (fn. 8) In the west part of the city once fashionable houses, particularly in lower Westgate Street and Archdeacon Street, had been converted as lodgings and their back courts filled with cottages by 1850 to make the area one of the most congested in Gloucester. In lower Westgate Street Old Spa House, more popularly known as the Duke of Norfolk's House, had been subdivided and two projecting shop fronts added to the ground floor. (fn. 9) Industrial development continued in the Island and behind the quay, (fn. 10) but in Quay Street the site of the city workhouse demolished in 1839 remained empty until after 1850. (fn. 11) The area to the south was dominated by the county gaol. (fn. 12) The Gloucester poor-law union erected its workhouse on the east side of the city and outside the built-up area in 1837 and 1838. (fn. 13)

Figure 14: The growth of Gloucester: c. 1830 (top); c. 1885 (middle); c. 1904 (bottom)

Few alterations were made to the city's streets in the mid 19th century. The improvement commissioners widened the entrance to Upper Quay Street from Westgate Street in 1839, and congestion at the Cross was eased in 1849 by the rebuilding of St. Michael's church and the removal of an obstacle in Southgate Street. (fn. 14) The only major improvement was the construction in 1847 of Commercial Road from Southgate Street to the docks and the new custom house. The new road, which replaced the narrow twisting route along Kimbrose Lane, was laid out by a private company. At the entrance, which the commissioners formed by demolishing a group of cottages projecting into Southgate Street at Pye Corner, (fn. 15) the prominent triangular site on the south side was filled in 1849 and 1850 by new offices for the Gloucester Savings Bank, (fn. 16) and the Black Swan inn (later the Yeoman) on the north side was rebuilt to a similar design. (fn. 17)

The leading local architects before 1850 were Thomas Fulljames, the county surveyor, and Samuel Whitfield Daukes. (fn. 18) Daukes, a pupil of the York architect J. P. Pritchett, had an office in Gloucester by 1834 and obtained commissions for new commercial buildings. On his departure in the late 1840s his associate James Medland, another of Pritchett's pupils, continued the practice, at first with J. R. Hamilton who had been Daukes's partner from 1841. (fn. 19) By the later 1840s Fulljames (d. 1874), also the diocesan surveyor, had taken into partnership his pupil F. S. Waller. (fn. 20) Another local architect of the period was John Jacques (d. 1868). (fn. 21)

Railway development took place mainly outside the old part of the city and caused little destruction. In the later 1840s Foley Cottages and part of Foley Place in Barton Street were demolished to make room for a branch line to High Orchard and the docks, (fn. 22) and several houses in London Road, Hare Lane, and St. Catherine Street were removed for the viaduct carrying the South Wales line. (fn. 23) The opening of railway stations east of the cattle market in the early 1840s (fn. 24) turned Eastgate Street into one of the busiest parts of the city. (fn. 25) In Clarence Street, which ran from Barton Street to the market and stations, development began in the late 1830s with a pair of substantial houses for professional men on the east side and continued sporadically. (fn. 26) The narrowness and steepness of its entrance from Northgate Street made St. Aldate Street a difficult route for traffic to the stations, (fn. 27) and an alternative way was provided in 1851 when Charles Church laid out George Street off lower Northgate Street. (fn. 28)

The development of the docks in the south-west corner of the city attracted industry and a large working-class population to that area. (fn. 29) On Barbican hill, north of the docks, buildings erected in the mid 1830s by the merchant Samuel Baker were used for commercial purposes, part being occupied from 1835 by the Gloucester Commercial Rooms. (fn. 30) South of the docks, building at High Orchard, between the Bristol road and the Gloucester and Berkeley canal, was begun in 1835 or 1836 by a company led by Baker, which removed existing huts and sold off land for commercial and industrial development. Several cottages, forming terraces in Anti-Dry-Rot Street (later Elming Row) and High Orchard Street, had been built by the early 1840s, (fn. 31) when the Revd. Samuel Lysons, owner of the nearby Hempsted Court estate, provided a church and a school for the area. (fn. 32) An inn called the Railway Tavern, built on the corner of Elming Row in the area known as Sudbrook, took its name from a railway begun there in 1839 but abandoned soon afterwards. (fn. 33) Residential development continued around the junction of the Bristol and Stroud roads, and a pilaster-fronted house at the corner of Llanthony Road had been completed by 1840. (fn. 34) East of the Bristol road and some way south of the entrance to the Stroud road and turnpike, Theresa Place, an imposing ashlar-fronted terrace, was begun in 1836. Built for Samuel Lysons to a design of Thomas Fulljames, (fn. 35) it was intended for prosperous residents but was later surrounded by artisans' houses and factories. Commercial development of the canal bank south of High Orchard had started by the later 1830s, but little building took place west of the canal before the 1850s. (fn. 36)

The floodlands of the river Severn restricted development on the north and west sides of Gloucester and the highest floods, notably that of 1852, covered low-lying parts of the built-up area. (fn. 37) As a result suburban growth was largely confined to areas south and east of the city centre, (fn. 38) and builders' reluctance to take leasehold land meant that development was piecemeal and sprawling and that land belonging to institutions was in general not built on early. (fn. 39) Streets were laid out by speculators and built up, sometimes over several decades, by small contractors developing plots for a few houses at a time. (fn. 40) The main building material was local brick, mostly from meadows by the Severn. (fn. 41)

Most of the residential development started after 1835 was for working-class housing, usually in terraces of two storeys, and was concentrated in new streets on the south-east side of Gloucester near the railway. The builder William Rees, one of the principal speculators, laid out Prince Street, Albert Street, and Cambridge Street at the east end of Mill Lane in 1839. (fn. 42) Further west he and the builder William Wingate formed Bedford Street, Whitfield Street, and the western part of Russell Street c. 1845. (fn. 43) On the south side of Barton Street a cul-de-sac called Hampden Place was apparently laid out by the surgeon James Peat Heane and built up in the early 1840s. (fn. 44) Further out on Barton Street many houses and workshops were built beyond the point where the Gloucester-Cheltenham tramway crossed the road. (fn. 45) The turnpike on the city side of the tramway was moved further out by public subscription in 1854 but the railway crossing formed there in 1848 remained a considerable obstacle to road traffic. (fn. 46) In 1843 there was also a turnpike in Goose Lane (later Millbrook Street), where further building took place by the railway from the early 1840s. (fn. 47) On the south side of Barton Street Victoria Street was laid out for terraced housing by Richard Helps in 1837 (fn. 48) and building began in the west part of Ryecroft Street before 1843. (fn. 49) Falkner Street was formed c. 1850 by the Birmingham corn merchant Joseph Sturge, whose firm built a row of semidetached cottages there for its employees. (fn. 50) Building also continued in the Barton End suburb around Barton Terrace (later the north part of Tredworth High Street), (fn. 51) and to the south-west a group of dwellings known as Newtown, mostly huts inhabited by the poor evicted from High Orchard, sprang up around a pipe factory in the late 1830s. (fn. 52) Some building took place near an old farmstead on Barton Lane (later Parkend Road), and by 1850 Samuel Bowly had erected two cottages in that area as part of an allotment scheme. (fn. 53)

On the north-east side of Gloucester the building of artisans' houses in the streets north-east of Alvin Street continued after 1835, (fn. 54) and the combination of overcrowding with poor drainage made the area around Sweetbriar Street the least sanitary in Gloucester. (fn. 55) In 1840 a small working-class development was begun south of London Road in Newland Street by William Lea and William Dawes. (fn. 56) In the early 1840s a few houses were built for more prosperous residents in the entrance to Gallows Lane (later Denmark Road) near Wotton Pitch. (fn. 57)

Gloucester's increasing importance as an industrial centre and its rapidly growing population stimulated considerable redevelopment in the older parts of the city and widespread building in outlying districts after 1850. In 1854 the construction of a sewerage system enabled the corporation to fill in and use the course of Dockham ditch between the Foreign bridge and St. Catherine Street for a new road (Priory Road) to reduce traffic at the Cross and in Three Cocks Lane. (fn. 58) The corporation also widened lower Westgate Street at the entrance to the Island in 1859 (fn. 59) and carried out minor improvements in St. Mary's Square in 1865, after St. Mary de Lode parish had cleared its churchyard of secular buildings, including two former alehouses. (fn. 60) The corporation diverted the west part of Parliament Street northwards by demolishing the Green Dragon inn at the entrance to Southgate Street in 1869, (fn. 61) and it widened the entrance from Northgate Street to St. Aldate Street in 1882. (fn. 62)

Rebuilding and refronting continued in the city centre and several of the oldest buildings were replaced, including in 1865 the former Ram inn in Northgate Street. (fn. 63) The porticos of 1856 on the Eastgate market and corn exchange were among prominent additions to the main street fontages, (fn. 64) and the Bell hotel was refronted during extensive alterations, which began in 1864 and allowed a widening of the entrance to Bell Lane. (fn. 65) In the same year T. F. Addison, a lawyer, built a tower in the garden of a house south of Bell Lane as a memorial to Robert Raikes. (fn. 66) Notable additions to lower Northgate Street were the new Spread Eagle hotel of 1865 to a design of J. Medland and A. W. Maberly (fn. 67) and the Northgate chapel of 1877–8. (fn. 68) The influence of the cattle market and railway stations on that part of the city was particularly evident in George Street where early building included two hotels at the south end, the Wellington, on the west side, opening before the Gloucester opposite in 1854. (fn. 69) The building up of Clarence Street continued (fn. 70) and the north side of St. Aldate Street was gradually dominated by a range of workshops begun by 1874 for the furniture maker Edwin Lea. (fn. 71) Another industrial development in the central area was the building of a factory behind Eastgate House, between King Street and Dog Lane, in 1873 for the printer John Bellows. (fn. 72)

In the west part of the city industrial building continued in Quay Street, (fn. 73) and between 1854 and 1856 Castle Gardens north of the county gaol were covered by barracks in castellated Gothic style for the Royal South Gloucestershire Militia. (fn. 74) Among other buildings of that time was a Gothic-style probate registry office, built at the corner of Pitt Street and Park Street in 1858. (fn. 75) In Worcester Street a chapel was built in 1857, (fn. 76) and the older circular building was demolished in 1861 to make room for a school. (fn. 77) At the corner of Southgate Street and Kimbrose Lane the site occupied by the former city gaol, police station, and Kimbrose Hospital, all demolished in the early 1860s, (fn. 78) was built on from 1866. (fn. 79) During that period buildings were added to Commercial Road and Ladybellegate Street, where an orchard belonging to Bearland House was developed commercially from 1870. (fn. 80) Buildings were also added to the north part of Brunswick Road, beginning in 1867 with stores for the Gloucester Co-operative and Industrial Society. In 1877 the society also filled the angle formed with Barton Street by stores to a Gothic design by Medland and Son. (fn. 81) Other important developments in Brunswick Road were the Schools of Science and Art of 1871–2 to a Gothic design by F. S. Waller (fn. 82) and the Baptist chapel of 1872–3 and Raikes Memorial Hall of 1884. (fn. 83) Further south towards the Spa, St. Michael's Square was laid out in 1882 by Daniel Pidgeon of Putney (Surr.). (fn. 84)

The closure of the Gloucester-Cheltenham tramway in 1861 released land for building and a section north of Barton Street was replaced by a road leading into Mill Lane. (fn. 85) The site of the tramway depot at the corner of Brunswick Road and Park Road was used for commercial development. (fn. 86) East of the Spa, which had remained a fashionable residential area, several large houses were built facing the park opened in 1862. (fn. 87) Most were on the north side of Park Road, where development on Barley Close, over which the corporation laid out New Park Street (later Belgrave Road) in 1864, was delayed by the retention of ground rents. (fn. 88) The most prominent building was the Presbyterian church of 1870–2. (fn. 89)

Though building slowed during periods of economic recession such as the later 1850s and early 1880s Gloucester's suburban growth in the later 19th century was extensive. New working-class housing was generally located on low ground south and south-east of the city, especially near the docks and Bristol Road which had become the main industrial quarter. The dwellings of the prosperous middle classes were on higher ground further south and east and in outlying settlements. With the growth of the suburbs the older, crowded parts of Gloucester became less populous, particularly in the 1850s when the city's population fell by over 1,000 as people moved to more open streets outside the boundary. In 1871 the parliamentary borough had a population of 31,844 while the municipal borough had one of only 18,341. (fn. 90) Building continued in the confined courts of the Island, though in general there was a drift of people away from the western part of the city. (fn. 91) Many of the new areas were taken into the city in 1874 but the corporation's rating policy in them encouraged development outside the new boundary. (fn. 92)

In the Bristol Road area industrial development spread southwards from High Orchard after the railway reached that area in 1848 by crossing the road at Sudbrook. (fn. 93) In response to the shortage of housing, Samuel Lysons in 1854, following the principles of the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts, built 52 artisan dwellings behind Theresa Place in 12 pairs of cottages called Clarence Town (later the south side of Theresa Street) and a long terrace called Alma Place. (fn. 94) Several factories were established in Bristol Road in the 1860s and 1870s, notably the works of the Gloucester Wagon Co. opposite the junction of Stroud Road in 1860, (fn. 95) and from the late 1860s, when S.J. Moreland laid out two streets next to his match factory, speculative developments of terraced housing sprang up east of Bristol Road and north of Stroud Road. (fn. 96) Much further south, Tuffley Avenue was laid out between the two roads in 1874 on the former Sheephouse estate, (fn. 97) and by 1882 several streets had been started off Bristol Road. (fn. 98) Although some landowners opposed development of land fronting the canal, (fn. 99) timber yards covered much of the eastern bank as far as Hempsted bridge by 1854. (fn. 100) Further south gasworks were built on the Bristol road in the mid 1870. (fn. 101) At Llanthony, west of the canal, commercial development began in the early 1850s with the construction of a quay and railway, (fn. 102) the Hempsted road having been diverted to make room for a dock which was never built. (fn. 103) During the construction of the Llanthony lock and weir in the Severn's eastern channel c. 1870 the river was widened. (fn. 104)

In New Street, between Stroud Road and the Sud brook, over 60 houses had been built by 1871, most of them by Richard Cherrington, who began building terraced houses there in 1867 (fn. 105) and was involved in the development of other parts of Gloucester. Further out on Stroud Road, Forest Terrace was built by Joseph Scudamore in 1870 (fn. 106) and building in Castle Street (later the north part of Stanley Road) began in 1877. (fn. 107) Larger houses and villas were being built on the main road towards Tuffley by the late 1870s when the formation of Linden Road began. (fn. 108) Building at Tuffley during the period included several substantial houses on Robins Wood Hill with extensive views over the Vale of Gloucester. Oak Bank, one of the earliest, dates from the late 1860s. (fn. 109) A few smaller houses were built at the reservoirs on the north-west side of the hill. (fn. 110)

Figure 15: The outer Barton Street and Tredworth area, 1883 (north at the top); Barton Street runs diagonally across at top right

Most new building in the later 19th century took place on the south-east side of Gloucester, where inner Barton Street ceased to be a fashionable residential area and was surrounded by more streets. J. N. Balme released the land remaining south of Mill Lane (later Market Street) for building in 1853, but the square formed by his extension of Russell Street, Tanner Street (later St. Kilda Parade), and Nettleton Road was not filled with houses. (fn. 111) South of Barton Street, Wellington Street and Cromwell Street were begun in 1852, and the former, a continuation of Hampden Place into the road from the Spa to Barton Street (later Park Road), (fn. 112) was built up with terraces of three storeys for more prosperous residents. To the east King's Barton Street and Arthur Street were laid out in 1864 for working-class housing by Joseph Lovegrove, and the corporation shared in the formation of Arthur Street as part of its Barley Close development. (fn. 113) Lovegrove, who contributed to the growth of other parts of Gloucester, was a prominent local solicitor. (fn. 114)

Further out on Barton Street there was extensive new building. In 1854 A. G. D. Goodyere, the owner of Barton House, laid out several streets north of the road, including Widden Street (fn. 115) where Gloucester's first board school was built in 1878, (fn. 116) and Joseph Lovegrove started a small development south of the road after he bought Barton House in 1870. (fn. 117) The Vauxhall Gardens were covered with terraced housing from 1863. (fn. 118) A terrace had been built to face the gardens from Millbrook Street, where there was a surge of building in the later 1860s. (fn. 119) A considerable stimulus to development there was given by the construction in 1869 of wagon repair works near the former T station. The new works adjoined the Lower Barton House property of Isaac Slater, the Gloucester Wagon Company's manager, who laid out and built houses in Sidney Street. (fn. 120) The increased demand for housing was also met by building in India Road (fn. 121) and, by 1874, beyond the railway, at first along the Painswick road towards Saintbridge (fn. 122) and later at Coney Hill, where several streets in the Newton Avenue area had been formed in 1872. (fn. 123) In 1871 the solicitor James Bretherton, one of the developers of the Millbrook Street area, laid out a street north of the railway towards Wotton, (fn. 124) where development was dominated by a mental hospital. In the late 1870s building continued in and around Millbrook Street and India Road, (fn. 125) with All Saints' vicarage being by far the largest house. (fn. 126) The city's tramways inaugurated in 1879 ran to a depot in India Road. (fn. 127)

New building was also concentrated in the High Street area of Tredworth, some way south of Barton Street, where more streets were laid out for terraced housing in the early 1850s. (fn. 128) The Gloucestershire Mutual Benefit Building Society, a land society founded in 1852 for the working classes by leading Gloucester Liberals, such as the temperance advocate Samuel Bowly, developed two estates in the area. The Barton Lane estate of 1853 was on the south side of Falkner Street, and the Painswick Road estate of 1854 was east of High Street and bounded on the south by the Sud brook and on the east by the railway. The society built several houses, including a row dated 1855 in Melbourne Street, but sold most plots to members. The estates were completed slowly, only 63 houses having been built by 1865, (fn. 129) and introduced villas and semidetached residences to the area, which became known as California and was described in 1871 as 'a strange mixture of neat villas, fragrant pigsties, and Newtown shanties'. (fn. 130) South of Tredworth Road two new streets were built up with terraced houses from 1870. (fn. 131)

The construction of water mains from Great Witcombe to the city in the late 1850s stimulated building on Ermin Street, (fn. 132) with many of the new houses on the south side of the road set in grounds running back to the Wotton brook. Wotton, where the local politician John Ward built Bohanam House for his residence in the later 1860s, (fn. 133) became a favoured middle-class suburb, but building in Barnwood, further out, slowed after the opening in 1860 of Barnwood House Hospital, which was to dominate the village for over a century. (fn. 134) Nearer the city several houses in London Road became residences for city clergymen, (fn. 135) and Hillfield was rebuilt for the timber merchant Charles Walker to an Italianate design of John Giles c. 1867. (fn. 136) Another important development there was the replacement of the ancient hospitals of St. Margaret and St. Mary Magdalen by a large new almshouse in the early 1860s. (fn. 137) Building on the Heathville estate north of London Road was delayed until after an improvement in 1865 of Gallows Lane, which had been renamed Denmark Road in 1863 when part was rebuilt by the city corporation. (fn. 138) Heathville Road was laid out first, followed in the late 1860s by Alexandra Road, (fn. 139) and by the early 1880s several large houses, including two terraces, had been built. (fn. 140) The streets formed west of Heathville Road from 1876 were filled with smaller houses. (fn. 141) East of Gloucester some building had taken place in the early 19th century beside the Gloucester-Cheltenham tramway, notably in the Armscroft Road area in the east of Wotton (fn. 142) and on the Cheltenham road at Longlevens. (fn. 143) The settlement at Longlevens, which comprised an inn and several cottages in 1851, (fn. 144) had begun to expand westwards along the north side of the Longford road by 1863 (fn. 145) and took the name of former open-field land there. (fn. 146)

On the north side of Gloucester there was much building in parts of Kingsholm and the number of inhabited houses in the hamlets of Kingsholm St. Catherine and Kingsholm St. Mary rose from 219 in 1851 to 383 in 1861. (fn. 147) In the early 1850s the working-class development north-east of Alvin Street was extended, with Joseph Lovegrove laying out Counsel Street, (fn. 148) and at the same time Worcester Parade, a stuccoed terrace, was built piecemeal on one of James Cheslin Wheeler's nurseries behind St. Mark's church. (fn. 149) Further north humbler terraces were begun in St. Mark Street and Edwy Parade (formerly Snake Lane) and several villas were built in the newly formed Kingsholm Square. (fn. 150) Part of Sebert Street had been built up by 1855. (fn. 151) North of Kingsholm on the Tewkesbury road towards Longford new building had included Westfield House, a large classical residence of c. 1840 which was enlarged in the mid 1880s when it became a school. (fn. 152) Nearby in Westfield Terrace two pairs of small villas were built c. 1850 and a third pair, to a different design, before 1865. (fn. 153) Nearer the city Greville House was built in the early 1860s for the timber merchant William Nicks (fn. 154) and a children's hospital opened on the opposite side of the road in 1867. (fn. 155) The turnpike was moved from Kingsholm out to Longford in 1858. (fn. 156)

The meadows north and west of Gloucester were little touched by development, though there was some building beyond Westgate bridge in Pool Meadow, which in 1843 had a boatbuilder's yard, an inn, and a pair of houses. (fn. 157) By 1861 the number of houses there had increased to 15 and by 1881 to 43. (fn. 158) Tabby Pitts Pool, a large pond created in the southern part of Meanham (later St. Catherine's Meadow) c. 1850 by brickmaking for the nearby railway viaduct, was filled in in 1889. (fn. 159) In the early 20th century parts of the meadows were adapted for public recreation, namely the Priory Road playing field in Little Meadow in 1901 and the Oxlease showground in 1904. (fn. 160)

The pace of building in Gloucester and outlying districts quickened with the economic revival of the later 1880s. In the city alone 27 streets, 1,789 houses, and 206 shops and factories were built between 1889 and 1899. Most new building was on the south and east sides of Gloucester and with the movement of people to the suburbs many houses in the western part of the city became derelict. (fn. 161) The city corporation carried out many street improvements, (fn. 162) and a private company widened the approach to the cathedral from Westgate Street in 1892 and 1893 by replacing the buildings on the east side of College Street by a uniform range of red brick shops with timber gables designed by Waller & Son. (fn. 163) In another major improvement Westgate Street was widened between Lower Quay Street and the Island between 1902 and 1913. (fn. 164) Road improvements and other developments involved the demolition of many ancient buildings, including several in Longsmith Street in the early 20th century. (fn. 165) There was some rebuilding in areas of housing just outside the city centre, such as Park Street and St. Catherine Street, and from 1909 the courts and lanes of the city centre and the 19th-century suburbs to the north-east and south-east were subject to sporadic slum clearance. (fn. 166)

By the early 20th century new public buildings, banks, and shops had transformed the appearance of the older part of the city. (fn. 167) The most prominent group was in Eastgate Street (fn. 168) and comprised the Guildhall, built in the early 1890s on the site of the early 19th-century Bluecoat school, (fn. 169) the National Provincial Bank, replacing in 1888 the former town house of the Crawley-Boevey family and having a stone front in a classical design by Charles Gribble of London, (fn. 170) and Lloyds Bank, a tall brick building of 1898 in a Renaissance style by F. W. Waller. (fn. 171) Ashmeade House between Dog Lane and Clarence Street was replaced by new offices and a showroom of the Gloucester Gaslight Co., opened in 1891. (fn. 172) In Southgate Street the Ram (later the New County) hotel was refronted in 1890 (fn. 173) and the corn exchange portico was rebuilt flush with the street frontage in 1893. (fn. 174) At the Cross the Tolsey was replaced by a building for the Wilts and Dorset Banking Co., opened in 1895, (fn. 175) and a shop on the south-east corner in Southgate Street was rebuilt in 1901. (fn. 176) The north-west corner was remodelled between 1905 and 1907 when three shops gave way to a stone building for the London City and Midland Bank. (fn. 177) In the early 20th century new frontages in the principal streets were in a variety of styles, including timber framing and elaborate brickwork with shaped gables. (fn. 178) In Brunswick Road the block east of Queen Street was dominated by the co-operative society's stores, which were extended in 1883 and 1904. (fn. 179) The block east of Constitution Walk was completed in the 1890s, notably by the stone Price Memorial Hall of 1892–3, in a Renaissance design by F. W. Waller, and the public library of 1898–1900, designed by Waller as a southwards extension of the science and art schools. (fn. 180) Further south the new Crypt school was built at Friars Orchard in 1889. (fn. 181)

Figure 16: GLOUCESTER 1900

The railway and dock companies contributed substantially to Gloucester's development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1889 the lane leading from London Road to the workhouse was widened by the G.W.R. for goods traffic and was renamed Great Western Road. (fn. 182) The poor-law union began building on the east side in 1912. (fn. 183) The removal of the Midland Railway's passenger station to the east end of Market Street (renamed Station Road) in 1896 (fn. 184) stimulated new building in that area, a prominent addition being the Royal hotel of 1898 designed by H. A. Dancey. (fn. 185) The move possibly contributed to the closure of the Spread Eagle hotel, the main part of which, acquired in 1898 for the Y.M.C.A., was converted with shops and offices on the ground floor and renamed Northgate Mansions. (fn. 186) The railway stations attracted further commercial development to George Street, with the Post Office gradually occupying most of the east side; its sorting office there incorporated from 1904 showrooms built for the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co. in 1894. New buildings on the west side included an extension of the cattle market completed in 1899. (fn. 187) The corporation's electricity works opened in 1900 replaced several buildings in Commercial Road and Ladybellegate Street, (fn. 188) and developments in Bearland included the county magistrates' courts of 1908. (fn. 189)

In the suburbs the building up of streets and infilling proceeded as Gloucester continued to grow, and from the mid 1890s the city corporation encouraged the work of speculative builders by laying out streets for residential development on its land in the Stroud Road and Denmark Road areas. (fn. 190) In the late 19th century more factories were built at High Orchard and in Bristol Road and timber yards covered the remaining farmland between the road and canal. East of the road more streets were laid out (fn. 191) and building in those north of Tuffley Avenue led to a considerable rise in the population of Tuffley parish. (fn. 192) The city's tramways were extended along the road from Theresa Place to Tuffley Avenue in 1897 and a depot was built there. (fn. 193) In the north part of the area several terraces and streets disappeared under factory extensions before the end of the First World War (fn. 194) and the offices of the wagon works facing Stroud Road were rebuilt on a much larger scale in 1904 and 1905. (fn. 195) South of Tuffley Avenue the Bristol road was diverted and carried by a bridge over the new Monk Meadow branch railway in the late 1890s, (fn. 196) and there was further industrial building on that part of the road in the early 20th century. The opening of the Monk Meadow dock in 1892 stimulated further industrial development west of the canal at Llanthony, where several houses and a new street were also built. (fn. 197)

On the south-east side of Gloucester the land remaining in Barton Street and Tredworth west of the G.W.R. line was filled with new streets. (fn. 198) In Barton Street Lower Barton House was demolished after Isaac Slater's death in 1885 and Derby Road and several other streets were formed on its grounds. (fn. 199) In 1887 the co-operative society built a depot at the east end of India Road. (fn. 200) In Tredworth the Newtown huts had been removed by 1891. (fn. 201) Suburban development continued at Saintbridge and Coney Hill. (fn. 202) There was extensive building in the Stroud Road area in the south, where Linden and Seymour Roads were laid out in stages. Towards Tuffley the main road continued to be built up with larger houses, and development of the former Sheephouse estate, which by 1901 included two streets south of Tuffley Avenue, quickened in the early 20th century. (fn. 203) At Tuffley G. T. Whitfield built Fox Elms for his residence and many smaller houses for employees at the brickworks that he opened on Robins Wood Hill in the early 1890s. (fn. 204) May Hill Villas, four pairs of dwellings on the main road dated 1896 or 1897, were part of that development. The building up of Reservoir Road continued with large houses, and after the death of Henry Nice in 1912 streets were laid out on his land to the north, in the Northfield (later Southfield) Road area. (fn. 205)

There was further building at Kingsholm, notably in Dean's Walk where several houses were erected on the former City Gardens from the later 1880s. (fn. 206) The south part of the road, where building had begun by 1901, (fn. 207) was widened in the early 20th century, (fn. 208) and further north part of Dean's Way was laid out before the First World War. (fn. 209) Several new roads were also formed between Kingsholm and Wotton and large houses continued to be built in the Denmark Road area. (fn. 210) The settlements on Ermin Street were affected by considerable suburban development. In Wotton, where Egbert Horlick had laid out Wolseley Road in 1883, (fn. 211) there was much building in the Armscroft Road area. (fn. 212) The building of middle-class houses in Cheltenham Road and Oxstalls Lane was stimulated by the development of the Wotton Court estate north of Ermin Street from the late 1890s. (fn. 213) Sisson Road was formed to lead to engineering works opened east of Elmbridge Road in 1905. (fn. 214) In Barnwood houses, including 12 in Upton Lane, were built in the 1890s but development was discouraged by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, lords of the manor, and by the proximity of two mental hospitals. (fn. 215) There was much more building in Hucclecote, which grew as a dormitory of Gloucester from the later 1890s. The village expanded eastwards along Ermin Street towards Brockworth, and Green Lane and several new roads were also built up, many of the houses being detached. (fn. 216) Between 1891 and 1901 the number of inhabited houses in Hucclecote rose from 98 to 142 and the population from 459 to 671. The opening of an electric tramway between the city and the village in 1904 encouraged further building, and by 1911 Hucclecote's population had risen to 1,103. (fn. 217) Much of the development was on land belonging to William Colwell, an insurance manager. (fn. 218)

In the later 19th and early 20th century many new institutional buildings such as churches, chapels, and schools accompanied Gloucester's growth. Some, notably the Linden Road board school of 1893–5 with its tall campanile, (fn. 219) were the most prominent features of their localities. The leading Gloucester architect was James Medland (d. 1894), who had started his long career before 1850 and was partnered between 1854 and 1868 by A. W. Maberly, a former pupil of S. W. Daukes. Medland, who was county surveyor 1857–89, designed many of Gloucester's public buildings and his work, which included churches, schools, shops, and factories, was continued by his son M. H. Medland (d. 1920), also county surveyor. (fn. 220) C. N. Tripp, the son of a Gloucester timber merchant and a pupil of the elder Medland, established his own practice in the early 1870s but his career was cut short by his early death in 1883. (fn. 221) The principal exponent of the Gothic style in Gloucester was F. S. Waller (d. 1905), whose career, beginning before 1850, included the position of cathedral architect. He and his son and sucessor F. W. Waller (d. 1933), who favoured the Renaissance style, designed many important buildings. (fn. 222) Significant contributions to Gloucester's architecture were also made by W. B. Wood (d. 1926), a partner of the Wallers, and by H. A. Dancey (d. 1933), who established their own practices in 1889 and 1897 respectively. (fn. 223) Col. N. H. Waller (d. 1961) was the third generation of his family employed as cathedral architect. (fn. 224)

In the thirty years before the First World War there was sporadic building beyond the suburbs in districts which were later transformed by housing estates, (fn. 225) including Lower Tuffley (fn. 226) and Longlevens (fn. 227) south and north-east of Gloucester respectively. To the south-east beyond Saintbridge the inclosure of the open fields of Upton St. Leonards in 1897 released land for building, (fn. 228) one development comprising six pairs of cottages at Awefield Pitch, but Matson on the east side of Robins Wood Hill was largely untouched. (fn. 229) South-west of Gloucester a few houses were built in Hempsted village along the road to Hempsted bridge. Beyond the village towards the Severn a row of cottages had been built near brickworks at Lower Rea by 1882 and some cottages were erected at Upper Rea in the early 20th century. (fn. 230) North of the city Longford and Twigworth, which had been given a church and a school in the mid 19th century, (fn. 231) remained essentially rural. At Longford, the population of which rose between 1891 and 1901 from 521 to 673, (fn. 232) a short street of semidetached cottages laid out c. 1900 attracted artisans from the city. (fn. 233) There was little new building further out at Twigworth, whose population in the later 19th century usually stood at c. 180. (fn. 234)

After the First World War redevelopment of the city centre continued in a piecemeal fashion. The appearance of the main streets was governed almost entirely by commercial interests which replaced many buildings and shop fronts. Most rebuilding in the 1920s and 1930s was in Northgate and Eastgate Streets which contained the largest stores. (fn. 235) Part of the Northgate Street frontage of the New Inn, which included two shops, was restored in 1925. (fn. 236) There were several new developments at the west end of Barton Street where the co-operative society's stores on the corner of Brunswick Road were rebuilt in 1931. (fn. 237) Holloway House on the north side opened in 1936 as offices for the Gloucester Conservative Benefit Society. (fn. 238) At the west end of London Road several houses had been replaced by the early 1920s by the garage of the Bristol Tramways & Carriage Co., which was later enlarged and became the city's bus depot. (fn. 239) Several new cinemas appeared in the main streets and the Theatre de Luxe in lower Northgate Street was given a classical portico during alterations to designs by local architect William Leah in 1922. (fn. 240) Important buildings outside the principal streets included the employment exchange of 1935 in Commercial Road and the technical college of 1938–41 at Friars Orchard in Brunswick Road. (fn. 241)

As a result of commercial development several lanes and courts in the city centre disappeared, particularly in Northgate Street where Dolphin Lane leading to St. Aldate Square was closed in 1926. (fn. 242) In the largest scheme the Oxbode, leading off Northgate Street in the place of Oxbode Lane, and King's Square were formed between 1927 and 1929 by the demolition of shops and slum dwellings in an area also touching St. Aldate Street, King Street, and New Inn Lane. (fn. 243) The north side of the Oxbode was filled by a large building of 1928–31 to a design of Thomas Overbury of Cheltenham for the Bon Marché store, (fn. 244) and the south side by smaller shops beginning in 1929 with Oliver's store at the entrance from Northgate Street. (fn. 245) At the east end of that range the city's central post office, opened in 1934, (fn. 246) faced King's Square, which was a car park and bus station until the 1960s. On the north side of the square a cinema planned before the Second World War was not completed until 1956. (fn. 247)

The pace of slum clearance increased in the 1930s, beginning under orders confirmed in 1932 with 150 houses in courts and lanes in the Archdeacon Street and Island areas. In the later 1930s there were clearance throughout the city, mostly in older areas such as Hare Lane, St. Catherine Street, Quay Street, and lower Southgate Street. (fn. 248) Slum clearances and commercial developments greatly reduced the population of the older part of the city and many people were rehoused in new estates on the outskirts. (fn. 249) The west part of the city continued to decay as the suburbs spread southwards and eastwards, and shops in lower Westgate Street closed in even greater numbers after the formation of the Oxbode and King's Square. (fn. 250)

The new schemes of the corporation and of commercial interests in the 20th century led to the demolition of many old buildings and, in the main streets, of prominent buildings of a more recent date, including the former corn exchange (1938) and the early and mid 19th-century banks. At the Spa the pump room was demolished in 1960. (fn. 251) In the mid 1930s two ancient buildings in lower Westgate Street, including the putative lodging of Bishop John Hooper before his execution, were restored as a folk museum (fn. 252) and Sir Philip Stott, Bt., saved the early 16th-century Old Raven Tavern in Hare Lane from destruction. (fn. 253) At the quay the Round House, the remains of the late 17th century glasshouse that had once been a notable landmark in the western prospect of Gloucester, was demolished in 1933. (fn. 254) From the late 1920s overhead electricity transmission lines on the meadows west of the city intruded into that prospect. (fn. 255) In Castle Meads, where a transforming station was completed in 1933, (fn. 256) the corporation's power station, a prominent feature built in the early 1940s, (fn. 257) was removed in the early 1970s. Gloucester suffered little bomb damage during the Second World War, the worst air raid destroying 18 houses and a mission church in the Millbrook Street area in 1941. (fn. 258)

To prevent traffic congestion in the city centre and to give work to the unemployed a bypass road, running north-east from Westgate bridge round three sides of the city to the Bristol road, was begun in the early 1930s. It incorporated Finlay Road, which had been built on the south-east side of the city between 1925 and 1927, (fn. 259) and, with the construction of St. Oswald's Road from the bridge to the Tewkesbury road north of Kingsholm, Estcourt Road linking the Tewkesbury and Barnwood roads, and Eastern Avenue running east of the railway line bypassing Gloucester, had been almost completed to the Stroud road at Tuffley by 1938. (fn. 260) It was finished in 1959 when Cole Avenue, completing the link between Tuffley and the Bristol road north of Quedgeley, was opened, (fn. 261) but traffic between South Wales and Bristol continued to follow the route along the quay and Commercial Road into Southgate Street. (fn. 262)

By building 2,115 houses between 1919 and 1939 the city corporation contributed greatly to Gloucester's growth after the First World War. Large estates were created in the south, in the Linden Road, Tuffley Avenue, and Tredworth Road areas, and in the years 1924–5 several houses were built on a new section of the Painswick road at Saintbridge. From 1927 the corporation also built houses at Kingsholm and developed estates on the south-east side of the city at Finlay Road (602 houses between 1927 and 1931) and Coney Hill (474 houses between 1931 and 1939). (fn. 263) Many houses were built privately, most of them adjoining the Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Barnwood, Painswick, and Hempsted roads in areas added to the city in 1935 and 1951. Before the Second World War most private development was in the Cheltenham Road area, where Estcourt Road and Oxstalls Lane were built up and many new roads formed, but the largest houses were sited at Tuffley on the side of Robins Wood Hill. Suburban development in Lower Tuffley began in 1939 with houses in the Randwick Road area, in the angle of Tuffley Lane and Grange Road, for staff of the R.A.F. maintenance unit in Quedgeley. (fn. 264) The suburbs also spread beyond the city boundary, particularly in Longlevens where building was under way on the Elmbridge Court estate in the later 1930s. (fn. 265) Outlying villages such as Longford, Barnwood, Hucclecote, and Hempsted became increasingly suburban in character. Among new houses in Barnwood were four pairs of cottages in Welveland Lane built between 1927 and 1935 for staff of Barnwood House Hospital. (fn. 266) Hucclecote's development, influenced by the construction of an airfield between the village and Brockworth in 1915 and even more by the establishment of an aircraft factory there in the later 1920s, (fn. 267) included in 1920 fourteen council houses at Dinglewell, one of the Gloucester rural district's first housing schemes. (fn. 268) During the Second World War army barracks were erected on the north-east side of Robins Wood Hill near Matson (fn. 269) and some non-residential building took place on the bypass in Eastern Avenue.

From the mid 1950s land near the bypass in St. Oswald's Road, Eastern Avenue, and Cole Avenue was used for industrial development and some firms moved there from the city centre. (fn. 270) The cattle market was moved to St. Oswald's Road between 1955 and 1958 and the offices of some public services were transferred to Eastern Avenue. (fn. 271) The four streets meeting at the Cross remained the centre of commercial activity, but the opening of a bus station on the former cattle market site in 1962 (fn. 272) increased the trade of the shopping area between Northgate Street and Eastgate Street. There was some road widening at the Cross in the later 1950s, when the body of St. Michael's church was replaced by shops and the shops on the north-east corner were rebuilt. (fn. 273) To relieve traffic congestion in the surrounding streets an inner ring road was begun. The first section, running east of the bus station between London Road and Station Road and known as Bruton Way, was opened in 1962. (fn. 274) At the same time the Kimbrose was built from Southgate Street to Commercial Road as part of the ring road, which included the route along the quay (fn. 275) and joined the bypass in the Island by a gyratory road system, completed in 1961, around St. Bartholomew's Hospital. (fn. 276) Gloucester's traffic problem was eased by the opening in 1966 of the Severn Road Bridge linking Bristol and South Wales, (fn. 277) but Westgate bridge remained an obstacle until the early 1970s when Over causeway was replaced by a new western approach road and the gyratory system in the Island was improved. The opening in 1971 of the Birmingham-Bristol motorway east of the city reduced traffic on the bypass. (fn. 278) By 1975 the movement of road traffic in the city had also been helped by the closure of most of the railway level crossings, notably those at Sudbrook and in Barton Street. (fn. 279) Work on the inner ring road, proposals for which had been modified, (fn. 280) resumed in the early 1980s and in 1983 the section between Worcester Street and the park, incorporating parts of Station Road and the former Tuffley loop railway line, was completed. George Street was replaced in two stages by the ring road, and between 1970 and 1984 the Post Office transferred its operations from there to Eastern Avenue. (fn. 281)

In the 1960s and 1970s the main streets of the city centre, including lower Northgate Street, were increasingly dominated by branches of chain stores, bank, and building societies. The principal developments were connected with the formation of two pedestrian shopping precincts with car parking at roof level linked by bridges over Eastgate Street and Southgate Street. The Eastgate shopping centre, developed by an associate company of Land Improvements Ltd., (fn. 282) was created between 1966 and 1974 by the reconstruction of an area touching Eastgate Street, Queen Street, Constitution Walk, Greyfriars, and Southgate Street and including the Eastgate market, Suffolk House, Bell Lane, and the Bell hotel. It incorporated a new market hall south of Bell Lane, which became a covered way, and a large new Woolworth's store fronting Eastgate and Southgate Streets. The market portico, which was moved, formed an entrance to the precinct from Eastgate Street. The remains of the Greyfriars church were restored and an area to the north was landscaped, and the Greyfriars bowling green was retained. Queen Street became a covered pedestrian way, (fn. 283) and Boots The Chemists Ltd. filled the area between it and Brunswick Road with a new store, opened in 1980. The other pedestrian precinct, developed by Norwich Union Insurance Societies, (fn. 284) centred on King's Square, where in the early 1960s the west side had been filled by an extension of the Bon Marché store (fn. 285) and showrooms had been built on the east side for the Midlands Electricity Board. (fn. 286) Beginning in 1969 the square was landscaped and new shops were built on the south and east sides and in King Street, which became a covered pedestrian way. The scheme, which also involved closing Dog Lane and rebuilding the west side of Clarence Street, was completed in 1972. (fn. 287) Rebuilding on the north side of the square was finished in 1984 under a different scheme, which included the south side of lower Northgate Street where several large stores had been built, notably the Tesco supermarket on the site of the Methodist chapel demolished in 1973. (fn. 288) As suggested by G. A. Jellicoe in his plan for the city centre, a pedestrian way called the Via Sacra was formed using some of the ancient streets to link the new shopping areas with historic buildings, including the cathedral. (fn. 289)

During the same period many streets just outside the city centre were affected by office and commercial development and several prominent buildings were demolished, notably in 1984 the former infirmary in lower Southgate Street. Large extensions to the Shire Hall from the early 1960s replaced buildings on the east side of Upper Quay Street and south side of Bearland and Quay Street, including the former militia barracks. (fn. 290) In Spa Road, Waterloo House gave way in the later 1960s to offices called Cedar House for the city council's planning department. In Brunswick Road there were new buildings in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the technical college. (fn. 291) In Great Western Road, the east side of which was filled from the early 1960s with additional hospital buildings, (fn. 292) the Post Office erected an eight-storeyed block for its telecommunications services in the late 1960s on the site of the former workhouse, finally demolished in 1961. (fn. 293) South-east of the city centre building on abandoned railway land began with Twyver House, the land registry's offices opened in Bruton Way in 1968, (fn. 294) and continued after the closure of Eastgate station in 1975. (fn. 295) With the decline of the port and of older industries in the 1970s and early 1980s, parts of the docks and High Orchard were cleared and factories in several parts of the city were replaced by industrial or trading estates. New factories were built in the Bristol Road and Llanthony areas, which together remained the city's principal industrial quarter, and new industrial estates continued to be established along parts of the bypass road. (fn. 296) From 1967 the land between Barnwood and a new bypass road to the north was used largely for commercial development, (fn. 297) and outside the city factories and warehouses were built on the former airfield between Hucclecote and Brockworth from the early 1960s.

Slum clearance programmes from the mid 1950s were followed by the comprehensive redevelopment of parts of lower Westgate Street and Kingsholm. (fn. 298) In the Westgate Street scheme, which covered the area north of the street between the cathedral precinct and St. Oswald's Road, the buildings below St. Nicholas's church, many of them derelict shops, were replaced by council maisonettes and flats, beginning in 1956 with 64 dwellings at the corner of Archdeacon Street. (fn. 299) The Duke of Norfolk's House was demolished in 1971, and rebuilding east of the former Swan Lane finished in the early 1980s. Archdeacon Street was continued to the junction of St. Mary's Street and Pitt Street in 1961, (fn. 300) and in the late 1960s the area north of St. Mary's Square was built up with houses for clergy and flats for old people. On the south side of Westgate Street a block of flats on the corner of Lower Quay Street was completed in 1984. At Kingsholm the area north-east of Alvin Street was almost totally cleared and rebuilt with council maisonettes and flats in the 1960s, including an 11-storeyed tower block completed in 1963. (fn. 301) In 1983 the municipal charity trustees built a block of old people's flats in Sherborne Street. Other parts of the city were subject to sporadic clearance, and in the 1970s and early 1980s improvement schemes were carried out in the High Street, Alma Place, Millbrook Street, and Victoria Street areas. (fn. 302) In the Prince Street area most houses were demolished to make way for the leisure centre built between 1972 and 1974, (fn. 303) and in the 1970s a private developer replaced the houses between Whitfield Street and Bedford Street with new flats.

Gloucester's suburban development after the Second World War was on a vast scale. The corporation began building houses at Podsmead and Lower Tuffley in the south in 1946, at Elmbridge in the north-east in 1949, and at Matson in the south-east in 1951. By 1963 those estates comprised 487, 779, 380, and 1,717 dwellings respectively; the Lower Tuffley estate included houses and flats by the Stroud road south of Tuffley. (fn. 304) Piecemeal development, mostly private, continued beyond the city boundary, particularly in Longlevens, Barnwood, and Hucclecote, and included building at the Wheatridge between Saintbridge and Upton St. Leonards to the south-east. (fn. 305) Gloucester rural district council in 1956 resumed building in Hucclecote (fn. 306) and in the early 1950s built houses at Innsworth, (fn. 307) north-east of the city near the R.A.F. station in Churchdown, where later there was private development. The only suitable building land left in the city in the mid 1960s was at Lower Tuffley. (fn. 308) The boundary extension of 1967 added a large area to the east between the Painswick road and Barnwood and Hucclecote, which was used for extensive private housing, beginning in 1971 with the Heron Park estate (1,000 houses) between Saintbridge and Coney Hill Hospital (fn. 309) and including from 1980 the Abbeydale estate (3,500 houses proposed) between the Wheatridge and Hucclecote. (fn. 310) Most other houses built between 1967 and 1985, including extensive estates at Lower Tuffley and small infill schemes, were also private, but 378 houses on an estate which replaced the Robins Wood Hill barracks at Matson after 1974 were built by the city council. (fn. 311) Hempsted and Hucclecote villages, which had been absorbed by the city, were built up and in Barnwood most of Barnwood House Hospital was demolished in 1969 to make room for houses. (fn. 312) Outside the city suburban development continued at Innsworth and was stimulated at Longford by the construction in the early 1980s of an outer northern bypass. The traffic problem was also eased by the opening in 1966 of the Barnwood bypass, which ran north of Barnwood and Hucclecote between Eastern Avenue and Ermin Street, (fn. 313) and in 1972 of a link road between that bypass and the Cheltenham road at Elmbridge. (fn. 314) The outer northern bypass, which ran from Elmbridge and across the Tewkesbury road and Walham to a junction with the Chepstow and Ledbury roads on Alney Island, was completed in 1983. (fn. 315)

Footnotes