Town in Gloucestershire, England
Cheltenham
A Regency spa town said to have been found by pigeons pecking at salt, now home to a roaring racecourse, a famous secret listening station and a Polar hero.
Key information
- County
- Gloucestershire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- The Cheltenham Festival, Regency spa architecture, GCHQ and a calendar of literature, jazz and science festivals
- What locals are called
- Cheltonians
- Famous people
- Gustav Holst, Edward Wilson, Brian Jones
- Football clubs
- Cheltenham Town (the Robins)
About Cheltenham
The town that pigeons supposedly discovered
The story goes that in 1716 locals noticed pigeons pecking at white crystals around a spring in a field, and worked out that the water was salty and rather special. Whether or not the birds deserve the credit, a spa was born, and the pigeon is still part of the town's folklore. In 1738 Henry Skillicorne built a pump room and walks around the spring, and Cheltenham began to fill with visitors hoping to cure their livers. Then in 1788 George III arrived for a five-week stay, and the fashionable world followed him. Cheltenham salts, made from the local water, were bottled and sold far beyond Gloucestershire.
A Regency stage set with a tree-lined Promenade
Most of what you see today went up in the early nineteenth century, when the town grew in a rush of white stucco, wrought-iron balconies and wide, leafy avenues. The Promenade is a broad tree-lined boulevard of shops and terraces, while Montpellier and its quarter are lined with caryatids holding up the shopfronts. The grandest set piece is the Pittville Pump Room, built in the 1820s and 1830s with its columns and domed hall, and set beside Pittville Park. Visitors could drink the waters there while strolling beneath a Greek Revival portico. It is one of the finest Regency buildings in England and still hosts concerts and events.
Four days in March when the town roars
Cheltenham means horse racing to a huge number of people. The Cheltenham Festival, held each March at Prestbury Park beneath Cleeve Hill, is the high point of the National Hunt season, and the crowd's roar at the first race of the opening day is one of the sport's best-known sounds. Many of the visitors come from Ireland, and the town fills with them. The feature race is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, first run in 1924. Golden Miller won it five years in a row from 1932 to 1936, a record that has never been touched. Arkle took three in a row in the mid-1960s and Best Mate did the same from 2002 to 2004. Arkle even has a statue at the course. The Champion Hurdle, begun in 1927, is the other great prize of the week.
The secret listeners on the edge of town
Cheltenham is also home to GCHQ, the UK's intelligence and security agency. Its codebreaking roots go back to Bletchley Park, and the organisation moved to Cheltenham in the early 1950s. Its circular headquarters, nicknamed the Doughnut, opened in 2003 and is one of the town's most unexpected landmarks. It is an odd contrast: Regency terraces and garden squares on one side, and one of Britain's most secretive workplaces on the other.
Composers, explorers and a Rolling Stone
Gustav Holst, who wrote The Planets, was born in Cheltenham in 1874, and the house in Clarence Road is now a museum devoted to him. Edward Wilson, the doctor and naturalist who died with Captain Scott on the return from the South Pole in 1912, was born here in 1872. He has a statue on the Promenade, and the town's art gallery and museum is named after him. Brian Jones, founder of the Rolling Stones, was born in the town in 1942. Schooling has long been part of the town's identity. Cheltenham College opened in 1841 and Cheltenham Ladies' College in 1853, and both still draw pupils from all over the world.
Festivals, football and the Robins
Cheltenham likes a festival. Its Literature Festival began in 1949 and is among the oldest in the world, and the town also has well-known jazz, science and folk festivals through the year. Locals call themselves Cheltonians. On the football side, Cheltenham Town, known as the Robins, play at Whaddon Road. They won the FA Trophy at Wembley in 1998, reached the Football League in 1999 and went on to promotion to the third tier through the play-offs in 2002, an achievement for a club from a town better known for horses. In the 1930s the Great Western Railway's Cheltenham Flyer, a train from Cheltenham to London Paddington, was celebrated as the fastest scheduled train in the world, adding another entry to the town's list of firsts.