Night On The Tiles

I'm glad I didn't have to grout all of those tiles! (click on the photo to enlarge it and see the detail above the door) This is The Vine on the High Street, at the corner of Grosvenor Street. The pubs tiled front looks Victorian, but its actually from much later than this. The original building was severely damaged in a fire between the first and second World Wars, so this look dates from the late 40's. Back in the 1970's the pub was known as The Coopers Arms, then in the 90's it was renamed Cactus Jacks and opened as a Western themed bar, and recently it had a name change to The Vine. I guess the owners were trying to make it a bit more modern, but its hard to achieve in a building decorated in this old fashioned way.

While looking on the internet for some of the buildings history I came across this review from when it was still Cactus Jacks. It made me laugh!

" CACTUS JACKS (near Cheltenham Model Centre!)
(Review kindly supplied by someone without a name). This has to be Cheltenham's number one underage pub where a variety of fake IDs are widely accepted, but what is so special about this place is the apparent large number of OAPs. It appears that you have to either be under-16 or over-60 to get served in here by Dave or Shirley (the resident management). Another unique aspect of this pub is Ted. No matter what time of the day it is, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, come wind, rain or sun, you can always guarantee Ted will be sat at the bar - amazing! Ted particularly likes to pass his time by looking down the low cut tops worn under the Kappa tracksuits of the underage female contingent who swell the building on Saturday nights. The pub appears to do its' best trade during School Holidays, GCSE results day is a particular bumper day for Dave and Shirley!"