Cheltenham Kitchener

It's not uncommon to wonder what a place was like before it became what it is now. What did our houses or homes, or places of work, look like a century or two ago? This kind of history is deeply personal: having acknowledged our own attachments to a place, we start to wonder who else might have thought that same place dear to them, either in the recent past or the more distant.

Anyone walking through the doors of Kitcheners, the Cheltenham kitchenware shop, will see that there are more particular reasons to wonder what the shop has been. The internal architecture is particularly unusual in two respects. On the one hand, facing customers who walk in the front door, about two-thirds of the way across the main shop floor, is an ornately carved lateral wooden beam, which acts as the support for a clock-face. On the other hand, there is a cash desk, on the left-hand side of the shop, which is demarcated by wooden half-walls and vertical beams, creating a sort of enclosed, private space.