Hats off to a trio of shops in the town
GEORGE Rowe’s Cheltenham Guide of 1840 tells us that there were three hatters in business in the High Street.
Mr Plant’s shop, for example, stood opposite Bennington Street.
“Those patronizing Mr Plant’s establishment may depend not only on elegance and correctness of style a la mode, but in that which is scarcely of secondary importance in these economical times – moderation in price and durability in quality”.
Church’s Hat Warehouse at 137 High Street was described with equally florid enthusiasm.
“Mr Church has conducted the establishment for many years. The same heads which he has ornamented with the velvet cap in infancy, still coming under his hand for the polished and more manly beaver”.
The beaver was a particularly popular man’s hat at the time and the subject of a witty rhyme in the window of the High Street’s third hatter – Messrs Whittard.
It read: “...But of all the felts that may be felt – Give me the English beaver”.
Many local people will remember Madam Beatrix Taylor (see picture), which specialised in high-class ladies’ millinery. The shop opened in the 1930s, a decade that witnessed a blossoming of the hat as a style statement.
Madam Beatrix Taylor wasn’t just a retailer. Hats were made on the premises to individual instructions.
Sadly, when the shop closed about 30 years ago, no home could be found for all the moulds, blocks and paraphernalia that had once been used to make Madam Beatrix Taylor’s creations and most of it was thrown away.