Published in CAHS Newsletter No 58, Autumn 2013, pp.08-10
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Filling the open spaces Ashcroft, The Brewery, Cotswold Garage and car-parking in Cirencester
David Viner with Derek Porch
Cirencester’s town-centre car parks are often in the news, not always for sympathetic
reasons. The charges are too high, it is said; the time limits for parking are too strict, and
there isn’t enough room anyway. There are any number of such variations on this 20th and
now 21st century obsession with ‘parking the car’, probably the main reason why most
people today would give these parts of town a second thought.
But seen in an historical perspective the inherited pattern of spaces now used as car parking
today is interesting in itself. The two largest, known still as the Brewery and the Forum, were
once substantial open spaces in the very heart of Cirencester. Then undeveloped and little
more than the back gardens at the rear of property or ‘burgage’ plots, they show as just that
in maps from the 18th through to the early 20th century.
The Brewery open space is bounded by Castle Street to the north, Cricklade Street to the
east, the Ashcroft development to the south and what was once the old line of Sheep Street
to the west. This large area was mostly contained within the property of the Cripps family,
centred on Ashcroft House (now gone), and developed from the late 19th century onwards.
Properties and gardens in multiple ownership characterised the Forum, hidden behind Dyer
Street, Lewis Lane, and much of Cricklade Street, to which access for its present use was
achieved only by a substantial mid-20th century redevelopment project which punched
access ‘openings’ in the street-line, respectively by the Bear Inn in Dyer Street, opposite the
top of Tower Street in Lewis Lane, and by what was then the old ‘tap’ of the Kings Head in
Cricklade Street. Each of these ‘openings’ required the demolition of buildings of varying
significance, but all part of the town’s historic fabric.
And to complete this quick survey, interestingly the Waterloo car park sits atop similar
previously open space at the rear of Dyer Street; and the Abbey and Beeches car parks
were formed very much within the private grounds of Abbey House and opposite Beeches
House respectively – once the homes of leading townsfolk.
Also, and important to Cirencester, a sea of tarmac acts as great protection for any
scheduled ancient monument land sealed beneath - and most of these sites are so
protected. That, as they say, is another story.
Returning to focus on the Brewery, where the development has been greatest, several
previous uses within this large area have remained discernible, as glimpses if not more. The
name is a clue – Cirencester Brewery once occupied the major part of the site leading in
from Cricklade Street, by a route which is still used. What’s left now forms New Brewery
Arts, accessible to see and enjoy. Its history has also been studied in detail, perhaps best in
Joyce Moss’s excellent volume in 2009 (copies can still be found!).
Other parts await such detailed study, and that is to be encouraged. Much of this is within
living memory and so is often taken for granted. But it needs to be written down for the
record just the same.
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Derek Porch sent me his memories a couple of years ago and we’ve added to them since
then. He had spotted an early postcard view of Ashcroft Road in the Cirencester through
Time volume (Amberley 2009) showing a car-free street (bliss!) and a sign indicating where
Saunders & Sons, significant local builders in their own day, had their yard.
Derek was born here at 46 Ashcroft Road in 1934, and here‘s some of what he recalls:
‘Having spent my childhood in Ashcroft Road I knew who lived in every house and can even
remember when the iron railings in front of the houses were removed for the war effort.’ No.
46 is in fact the clue to what came later: ‘the gap between Nos. 46 and 48 had been the
roadway into Saunders’ yard and when I was born the house was split into offices on the
ground floor and a flat upstairs’, where Derek’s family lived.
‘The offices belonged to the Cotswold Garage and my father as well as being a mechanic
was also caretaker, and for many years after the garage closed down and Mycalex took it
over there used to be a petrol pump outside on the path that Dad was responsible for 24
hours a day. Fortunately, there were not the cars around to make this a problem at night but
we did have a phone (No. 201) which was very unusual in those early days, and Dad used to
get calls from the local gentry who had run out of petrol and needed a top-up.’
The Cotswold Garage had showrooms further along Ashcroft Road occupied until recently
by APD motor parts (and actually built by the Garage, perhaps?); Derek remembers that
‘where the small windows are now used to be full-sized windows which were blocked up at
the start of the war.’ So Cotswold Garage was quite a substantial town business with
directors to match. Kelly’s Directory for Gloucestershire in 1931 lists Col C(yril) ChesterMaster as managing director with Captain Michael Vernon as another director. At that stage
they were listed as ‘Automobile engineers and agents (private locks-ups).’
In fact there may well have been a link with the other main garage of that time in the centre
of town, at Bridges Garage in Castle Street. The two sites backed onto each other (evidence
of businesses steadily filling up this large open space) and this is where road access to
Tesco and its own rear yard is now. Derek recalls that ‘my father always told me that these
[directors] had been attached to Bridges Garage and that there had been a falling-out and
they had set up a business of their own.’
So Saunders’ yard becomes Cotswold Garage, separated by only a stone wall from Bridges
Garage and its yard – stretching from Ashcroft Road to Castle Street. Today’s use of this
whole area reflects just that link.
There’s another intriguing story linked to all this, which crops up as a query every so often
and for which additional information would be welcome. Derek summarises what he knows:
‘when Saunders’ yard became Cotswold Garage a large hanger-type building was erected.
The photograph I have shows the inside of the garage with my father Vic Porch in front and
Ernie Hunt wearing the trilby standing behind. Dad always told me that this building was an
original hanger from North Cerney airfield which had been dismantled and brought down [to
Cirencester] by every vehicle available, mainly by Gus Harman who had his premises at the
top of [Ashcroft] Road.’
This was presumably in the 1920s by which time the WW1 airfield had gone out of use.
Other sources recall there being two other similar buildings relocated here, but this one is
undoubtedly the largest. Harman’s building supplies business was housed in another (hence
Gus Harman’s involvement) which survived until the firm, by then Travis Perkins, removed to
Love Lane. Aerial postcard views over the town in the 1950s show the range of large
buildings still then surviving. See Cirencester Through Time (2009, p.57) as well.
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The Second World War brought its own chapter in this story. The garage site was acquired
by Sir Herbert Ingram in order for him to relocate his London factory to Cirencester, where it
became a major local employer. Derek recalls that ‘the garage had the complete works
installed and a lot of the workers were transferred and found houses mainly because
Mycalex supplied vital equipment for the war effort.’
Derek’s father remained in the flat as caretaker for the new company as well as a driver,
making trips to London Docks three times a week in blackout conditions (with the lorry
headlights blanked out), and enjoyed staying in the flat after retirement.
We would move into another story with Mycalex’s history in Ashcroft before its own transfer
up to Love Lane. But somewhere around 1953, the company made a major improvement to
its principal building (the old hanger in the photo) by erecting a new permanent building
around it and then demolishing the old structure beneath.
And as part of what became the Tesco development in the late 70s/early 80s, No. 46
Ashcroft Road was demolished to create the new vehicular access into the whole of the
Brewery area today, including the car parking which set us off on this story.
For local historians looking for a project, there’s plenty here to get one’s teeth into: the whole
story of removing airfield buildings from North Cerney down into Ashcroft; the individual
business histories of Saunders & Sons, Cotswold Garage, Bridges Garage and perhaps
especially Mycalex; and then the way in which Love Lane was developed as an early
business park by the removal of such town-centre businesses out to Cirencester’s southern
edge.
Inside Cotswold Garage, sometime in the 1920s/30s. Can anybody provide further
information or memories? (photo Derek Porch collection)
[ends]
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