The first Montpellier Spa was nothing more than a small wooden pavilion, hastily constructed in 1809 by the entrepreneur William Thompson to take advantage of Cheltenham Spa’s growing popularity. Popularity that by 1817 had risen enough to make this much larger building necessary, which G A Underwood designed for Thompson. Its most striking feature, the copper-covered rotunda, was added later though, by J P Papworth in 1825-6. Visitors can still see the inside of this opulent dome during the opening hours of the bank that now occupies it.
