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219 Bath Road (Formerly 19 Norwood Terrace)This oddly shaped shop is situated at the angle created by the junction of Bath Road and Norwood Road. It was known as Weighbridge House and later, 19 Norwood Terrace, in the 19th century and was named not after the town in Surrey (that's Weybridge!) but because the machine for weighing cart-loads on the Bath Road toll was situated in the street alongside.
In November 1849 James Sheepway, a butcher and farmer, was fined £1 for failing to have his cart, drawn by four horses and loaded with stone, weighed at the machine. After the toll was closed in about 1864 the weighbridge remained part of this property, though it is not clear whether it had any practical use. From at least 1851 the occupant of Weighbridge House was Mr William Bushell, an ironmonger. He was the son of another William Bushell, also an ironmonger and a whitesmith, with premises in the High Street and in London Road. A whitesmith made articles such as pots and pans from cold metals, especially from tin. William Bushell (the younger) died here on 9th January 1886, aged 80 and was buried at Leckhampton. The inscription on his tombstone proudly proclaims 'for 53 years a blacksmith in this parish'. Within a month his property was auctioned at the Norwood Arms and it included a house at 17 Norwood Terrace, the Weighbridge House (including the weighbridge) and the blacksmith's shop and building land situated between the two (see 217 Bath Road).
In 1889 the house was bought by Thomas Francis Sims, a grocer and provision dealer, for £400. However he was bankrupt by 1890 and in the following year these premises, known as the Weighbridge Tea & Grocery Stores, were sold again "neatly fitted with counters, shelves, scales and in a most populous district" (Cheltenham Examiner).
The property had been bought by the butchers Smith & Cotton by 1893, who were here until the mid 1920s. Today some of the iron hooks probably used for displaying the meat appear to remain on the outside of the building.
In 1901 Miss Cotton, of the Weighbridge House, and her friend Miss Smith were cycling home from Birdlip. They were descending the slope near the Air Balloon, when Miss Cotton appears to have lost control of her machine, the brake being seemingly of insufficient strength, and was thrown onto the embankment. A party of gentlemen who were travelling in the opposite direction at once rendered aid to the unfortunate lady, who was conveyed as soon as possible to the Cheltenham General Hospital, where it was found that her arm was broken and her face and head badly cut. She is believed to have made a full recovery. After Messrs Smith & Cotton the shop was taken over by Mr John Blake and his wife Edith, who ran a grocery here. John Blake died on 8th November 1940 at 219 Bath Road and it seems that Mrs Blake continued the business, selling sweets and tobacco, as well as basic grocery items. She opened the shop very early each morning for working people to buy their “baccy” on the way to work and was affectionately known as “Auntie Blake” to more than one generation of children who bought their penny sweets from her.
The Blakes had gone by the start of the 1960s and the property changed into a licensed betting office. The first turf accountant here was George Richards and later it was owned by Corals, a national bookmaker.
 Adams, 2013
By 1979 this became Burnett’s Soft Furnishing shop and then the business changed again to an estate agents, a use which continued until May 2017. The first was Scotts, then Cheltenham & Gloucester, followed by Taylor’s, then in 1997 R.A. Bennett and finally Adams. Next came a shop called Twig Clothing, which specialised in bespoke ladies fashions. This changed in 2019 with the arrival here of Kingfisher Flooring Ltd, supplying and fitting domestic and commercial flooring across Gloucestershire.
Researchers: Marilyn West, Stuart Manton & Eric Miller (July 2018)
Updated: Stuart Manton (September 2019) |
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