Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham

Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham is a mineral spa building commissioned in 1825 by the landowner and developer, Joseph Pitt. It was to be the focal point of Pittville, his new town, and features Ionic columns based on the Temple of Illisus in Athens. The architect was John Forbes of Cheltenham. He completed the £90,000 building in 1830 just at the point when "taking the waters" began to decline in popularity. In 1889 Cheltenham borough council bought the Pump Room. After being used as a store during WW2 restoration work was undertaken and it was re-opened in 1960. Today it is a venue for concerts and other events and the mineral water may still be sampled.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Regency shadows, Cheltenham

The Gloucestershire town of Cheltenham is a product of the Regency period (c.1795-1837). In 1788 George III stayed in the then market town. This event alongside the discovery of mineral springs and the construction of buildings to facilitate "taking the waters" led to a rapid expansion of the town. Today much of the private housing, parks, hotels, shops and civic buildings of that period remains and is a major attraction that draws visitors to the town. Most of the Regency houses are in the Renaissance style and many are rendered and painted. As we walked near Prittville Park I photographed this detail of one such house. The photograph may look like a black and white shot but I can assure you that it is colour.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Colourful quayside houses, Weymouth

This terrace of houses on the quayside of Weymouth harbour shone in the light of the summer evening, and revealed details that suggest they date from the early nineteenth century. The bowed oriel windows, the fanlights and open-book keystones, the parapet hiding the low-pitched roofs all say early 1800s. The colour wash does too, though not the royal blue and turquoise - they are painted after the fancy of someone nearer in time to us.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

St Paul, Parkend, Gloucestershire

The church of St Paul at Parkend, Gloucestershire, was designed and built in 1821-2 by Rev. Henry Poole, its vicar, a man who had architectural training before he entered the ministry. What makes it a remarkable building is most evident inside but is hinted at on the exterior. Its plan is a Latin cross with extensions across the right-angles that make the centre of the interior octagonal. You can see one of these as a splay between the nave and transept in the photograph above. Poole used the same device in his rebuilding of the medieval St Anne (Old Church) at nearby Coleford. Unfortunately, there only the tower remains after the rest was pulled down in 1882. We have seen the interesting interior of St Paul but our recent visit fell on a day when the church wasn't open. We will return.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Houses, Castle Street, Hereford

I've wanted to photograph this pair of houses for some time but I've always been thwarted by vehicles parked in front of them - until one September morning. The buildings date from the early nineteenth century and exemplify some of the characteristics of the style we call Regency. The French windows, louvres, the ornate cast-iron verandah with its sheet metal roof, are all of this period, as is the symmetry. One thing I find odd is that this recess, set back from the road, holds a pair of houses rather than a single, grander mansion. Another is that pink of the front doors.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

The Fosse, Hereford

The house called The Fosse, in Hereford, was built at a time when the comfortable and well-handled Georgian architecture was about to adopt some of the features that ultimately characterised Victorian architecture. Here we see an unusual pattern in the leading of the windows, elongated chimney stacks with chimney breasts featuring on the main elevation, a "squeezed" staircase tower with an inaccessible balcony above the front door, a first floor conservatory with a Dutch gable above, and pierced obelisks on the columns of the garden boundary. The house is thought to be the work of Robert Smirke and its date, 1825, is contained in a panel below the twin chimneys.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100