Hotel ploughed furrow for key point in town
FOLLOWING the controversy about restyling the High Street entrance to Cheltenham’s Regent Arcade, it seems appropriate to take a glimpse back at the building that occupied the site previously.
The Plough Hotel will be recalled by many as a local landmark and popular meeting place for people in the town.
Even during the Second World War Cheltenham’s Plough Hotel managed to produce a lavish brochure extolling its virtues as “the most famous coaching inn throughout the West of England”.
Recent improvements had been made too, including more bedrooms, many bathrooms, central heating and what the brochure called “incidental modern luxuries”.
Perhaps one such was the cocktail bar where “one can obtain, in unlimited variety, cocktails, punches and other drinks, prepared by a popular bar tender who has extensive experience”.
All 100 rooms had hot and cold water, gas fires were installed and many of the rooms had a telephone and multispring mattresses were found on every bed.
Just in case a browser of the brochure missed the fact that hot water was installed, the point was reiterated that in suites with sitting rooms and a private bathroom, ample hot water was always available.
A review of the hotel’s restaurant appeared in the Daily Express in 1938 in which the critic William Hickey, the Giles Coren of his time, wrote “We dined at Cheltenham’s ancient Plough Hotel.
“I have, with cause, complained so often of English provincial hotels, but I was delighted and surprised by this one.
“The steak was tender and just as under-done as we ordered it. The wine ably decanted. There was good local cheese and good coffee – both rare.”
Hickey also pointed out that the Plough kept a well stocked cellar despite the fact that “Many customers at Cheltenham seemed to be of the hearty, lager drinking type”.
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No change there then. The brochure is proud to tell us that Charles Dickens stayed there in 1867, as well as its patrons including “practically all the political and literary celebrities of the Regency and Victorian periods.”
By the 1960s the Plough was a tad run down and rickety, but in a comfortable way, like a pair of slippers you’ve had for a long time.
The barman still wore a white jacket and black bow tie, but the carpets were threadbare and the main staircase
creaked and lurched surprisingly to the left as though some important structural timbers had indeed given up the ghost.
On one memorable occasion, I was in the lounge bar when a portly chap on the next table reached for his pint just as the leg of the chair he was sitting on gave way.
In slow motion he tipped backwards until flat on the floor, all the while pouring Guinness over his trousers.
To the rear was the town’s largest car park, which occupied what had once been the coaching yard, stables and ostlers’ accommodation.
One of these buildings was converted into the Saddle Bar, entered through swing louvred doors like those seen in western movies.
It was a popular meeting place, and having a drink there was like being in a scene from High Noon.
The Plough was demolished in 1985 to make way for the Regent Arcade.
A sad day, although if it hadn’t been pulled down, it would probably have fallen down.