Assembly At The Bank

On the South side of Cheltenhams High Street is the imposing Lloyds Bank building. Built in 1900, to the designs of Waller and Son, the bank sits on the former site of the Assembly Rooms which, in one form or another, had been there since 1734. Over the nearly 200 years that the Assembly Rooms sat on the High Street the building had three or four different incarnations, the most expensive being the 1815 design costing £60,000. The Assembly Rooms were used for meetings, balls and entertainment and after the building was demolished these kind of events moved to the Town Hall. Inside the bank is a large banking hall with a high double story celling built in a neo-Baroque style. The outside of the building is impressive, with columns, stone balustrades and urns, and a small tower. A friend of mine used to be a junior clerk at the bank and one of his jobs was to hang out the Lloyds bank flag from the tower every day. When he left, the flag would often be missing or tangled around the pole (much to his annoyance!), then one day it vanished completely and hasn't been seen since.