© OS 25″ to 1 mile 1880
The map shows the Air Balloon at the junction of the Gloucester- Oxford Turnpike Road and the Cheltenham Old Bath Road, today the A436 and the B4070.
Turnpike Trusts were set up in the 1700s and it’s likely that these two roads had existed for many centuries previous partcularly with the alignment to Roman settlements.
Emma’s Grove is some 4000 years old and would probably have been sited near good road links.
Early records show there were two ale houses at the The Air Balloon Inn site.
https://www.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/directory/listing/the-air-balloon-pub-birdlip
The Inn was next known as The Balloon in 1796 and recorded as the Air Balloon in 1802.
However another website has delved further into some history
http://chreunion2009.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-did-air-balloon-get-its-name.html
The Air Balloon at Crickley Hill was called the New Inn in 1782.
It found a website on pub signes that stated that the “pub’s name commemorates the famous balloon flight by Edward Jenner which ended close to the building on 2nd September 1784.”
Here is the website for Jenner the smallpox vaccine pioneer.
http://www.cotswoldjourneys.com/cotswolds-guide/berkeley/edward-jenner-museum/
Jenners interest in balloons was piqued by the first flights in France by the Montgolfier brothers and by similar attempts in England. Using the expertise of someone in England who had already launched a hydrogen balloon, Jenner launched his own balloon from the courtyard of Berkeley Castle at 2pm on 2nd September 1784. It flew ten miles north eastwards, landing in a field at Kingscote. Relaunched, it drifted north along the line of the hills for a further fourteen miles, coming down again east of Gloucester on the escarpment at Birdlip. A local pub, known since the 1820s as the Balloon Inn and now called the Air Balloon Inn, may be named after this event.
This would confirm the renaming of the pub to The Balloon in 1796.
Another Jenner website puts it slightly differently.
https://edwardjennerpioneer.weebly.com/legacy.html
After Jacques Charles launched the first hot air balloon in 1783, Jenner felt inspired to launch his own balloon. Edward Jenner launched his hydrogen powered balloon in September 1784. His balloon travelled a total of 24 miles.
The Air Balloon Walks page has links to some leaflets which say
The inn at the top of Crickley Hill first opened its doors to travellers in 1777 when it was called the New Inn. The name was later changed to the Air Balloon probably to celebrate the first pioneering flights by hot air-balloon in the 1780’s.
Hot Air Ballooning became popular from the local Crickley Hill which may explain the further name change to The Air Balloon in 1802.
In recent times as the A436 became the unofficial A40 Cheltenham bypass The Air Balloon held its place as a landmark on the route.
For walkers it’s also a landmark as they tread the Cotswold Way from Bath to Chipping Campden, or navigate the county on the Gloucestershire Way.