Cheltenham's Daffodil up for sale
The Daffodil, most recently a restaurant but before that furniture showroom, bingo club but built as art deco cinema, is up for sale for redevelopment by Savills.
The Daffodil Cinema was designed by Leonard William Barnard, a prolific local architect. Built in Edwardian Free Style, with some Baroque Revival elements, the 750 seat cinema – then known as Daffodil Picture House – opened on 5 October 1922.
It closed as a cinema in 1963 and was converted into a bingo club and then an antique and furniture showroom, before being refurbished into a restaurant in 1998 (with interior decoration by Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen). Following a challenging five-year period, the restaurant permanently closed in 2023.
The 7,177 sq. ft (667 sq. m) building in the Suffolks area of the town, is being offered to the market on an ‘unconditional’ or ‘subject to planning’ basis.
The property, on Suffolk Parade, has planning permission for any Class E (commercial, business and service) use, granted in January 2024, while 21 Suffolk Parade has permission for conversion to a single residential dwelling, granted in October 2023.
Jemima Upton, a senior surveyor in Savills South Central Development team, said: "The Daffodil is an attractive and prominent building, with a number of character features indicative of the art deco era. Its sale represents a rare opportunity to give a renowned building a new lease of life, through sensitive conversion and/or redevelopment.
"Given its location, close to the town centre in the affluent and highly sought-after Montpelier, we believe the property could be particularly well-suited to a residential conversion."
Savills is seeking unconditional or subject to planning offers by midday on Wednesday 5 June 2024.
