Cheltenham

Cheltenham, or Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, England with a population of 110,013 at the 2001 census. The inhabitants are known as "Cheltonians". Its motto is: Salubritas et Eruditio ("Health and Education").

Cheltenham is on the edge of the Cotswolds and has an image of being respectable and wealthy. The small River Chelt flows under and through the town and is subject to regular floods.

Cheltenham is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held every March. The town hosts several festivals of culture.

History
The town was awarded a market charter in 1226, though little remains of its pre-spa history.

Cheltenham has been a health and holiday spa town resort since the discovery of mineral springs there in 1716. The spa waters continue to be taken recreationally at Pittville Pump Room, built for this purpose and completed in 1830. Cheltenham's success as a spa town is reflected in the railway station, which is still called Cheltenham Spa, and spa facilities in other towns that were inspired by or named after it.

Horse racing began in Cheltenham in 1815, and became a major national attraction after the establishment of the Festival in 1902. Whilst the volume of tourists visiting the spa has declined, the racecourse attracts tens of thousands of visitors to each day of the festival each year, with such large numbers of visitors having a significant impact on the town.

On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the borough of Cheltenham was merged with Charlton Kings urban district to form the non-metropolitan district of Cheltenham. Four parishes — Swindon Village, Up Hatherley, Leckhampton and Prestbury — were added to the borough of Cheltenham from the borough of Tewkesbury in 1991.

Local government
Cheltenham is split into 20 wards, with a total of 40 councillors elected to serve on the borough council. Following the May 2010 elections there were 25 Liberal Democrat members, 12 Conservatives and 3 representing People Against Bureaucracy.

The Liberal Democrat group has formed the Council's administration in the form of a 7 member Cabinet which is led by the Leader of the Council.

Cultural features
The town is famous for its Regency architecture and is said to be "the most complete regency town in England". Many of the buildings are listed, including the Cheltenham Synagogue, judged by Nikolaus Pevsner to be one of the architecturally "best" non-Anglican ecclesiastical buildings in Britain.

Museums
The Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum has a notable collection of decorative arts form the era of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The Holst Birthplace Museum contains personal belongings of the composer of The Planets, including his piano. It also includes a working Victorian kitchen and laundry, Regency drawing room and an Edwardian nursery.

Commemorative plaques
The Cheltenham Civic Society has been responsible for erecting commemorative plaques in the town since 1982: blue plaques to celebrate well-known people and green plaques to celebrate significant places and events. A full list of plaques is available here.

Festivals
Every year, Cheltenham Festivals organises music, jazz, literature and science festivals in the town, attracting names with national and international reputations in each field. Events take place at venues including the Town Hall, the Everyman Theatre, The Playhouse Theatre and the Pittville Pump Room.

A fifth cultural festival, the Cheltenham Folk Festival, is separately organised but also attracts international performers. A more local event, the Cheltenham Festival of the Performing Arts (formerly Cheltenham Competitive Festival) is a collection of more than 300 performance competitions that is the oldest of Cheltenham's arts festivals, having been started in 1926.

Greenbelt, a Christian arts and music festival, and Wychwood, a family-friendly folk and world music festival, are held at Cheltenham Racecourse. The town also hosts the multi-venue Walk the line festival.

Two sporting events are also routinely described as the 'Cheltenham Festival' or 'the Festival': the Cheltenham Cricket Festival, which features Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, and National Hunt racing's Cheltenham Festival (see below).

Music Scene
In 2010, Cheltenham was named the UK's fifth 'most musical' City by PRS for Music.

Film and TV
Cheltenham has played host to a number of high profile film and TV series. The BBC TV series Butterflies, as well as the film If... (1968) were both filmed in the town.

Education
The oldest school in Cheltenham is Pate's Grammar School (founded in 1574). Cheltenham College (founded in 1841) was the first of the major public schools of the Victorian period. The school was the setting in 1968 for the classic Lindsay Anderson film if..... It also hosts the annual Cheltenham Cricket Festival, first staged in 1872, and the oldest cricket festival in the world.

The most famous school in the town, according to The Good Schools Guide, is Cheltenham Ladies' College (founded in 1853). Dean Close School was founded in 1886 in memory of the Reverend Francis Close (1797–1882), a former rector of Cheltenham. The town also includes several campuses of the University of Gloucestershire, one other public and six other state schools, plus institutions of further education.

Sport and leisure
Cheltenham Racecourse, in the nearby village of Prestbury, is the home of National Hunt, or jumps, racing in the UK. Meetings are hosted from October to April. The highlight of the season is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which is normally held in the middle of March, during the Cheltenham Festival. This co-incidence with Saint Patrick's Day ensures that the town swells with an influx of Irish horse racing devotees.

The local football teams are Cheltenham Town F.C. who play in League Two, Cheltenham Saracens F.C. in the Hellenic League Division One West and Cheltenham Civil Service F.C. who play in the local Gloucester Northern Senior League.

Amateur rugby union clubs include Cheltenham R.F.C., Cheltenham Saracens R.F.C., Cheltenham North R.F.C., Old Patesians R.F.C., and Cheltenham Civil Service RFC.

The Cheltenham Rugby Festival is a rugby-league-nines event held in May.

The town has one golf course, Lilley Brook, in Charlton Kings.

Cheltenham has one of the largest croquet clubs in the country, and is home to the headquarters of the national body of the sport, the Croquet Association. The East Glos tennis, squash and women's hockey club, which was founded in 1885, is also located in the town.

Sandford Parks Lido is one of the largest outdoor pools in England. There are a 50 m main pool, a children's pool and paddling pool, set in landscaped gardens.

Economy
Cheltenham has light industry, including food processing, aerospace, electronics and tourism businesses. The Government's electronic surveillance operation Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), renowned for its "doughnut-shape" building, is in Cheltenham. Vertex Data Science, GE-Aviation, Dowty Rotol, Chelsea Building Society, Endsleigh Insurance, Nelson Thornes, UCAS (Universities & Colleges Admissions Service), Kohler Mira, Zurich Financial Services and Spirax Sarco all have sites in and around Cheltenham.

Kraft Foods' UK headquarters is presently in Cheltenham, but will close in the coming year after its purchase of Cadbury's, with the jobs moving to Cadbury's former sites in Uxbridge and Bournville.

Shopping and night-life
Cheltenham is a regional shopping centre, home to department stores, the oldest being Cavendish House, from 1823, and centres including the Regent Arcade and the Beechwood Shopping Centre. It is well-known locally for its nightlife, with a wide range of pubs, wine bars, clubs and restaurants.

The town attracts substantial numbers of young revellers from next-door Gloucester on Friday and Saturday nights. It also caters for the more affluent crowd, and boasts a Michelin two-star restaurant, 'Le Champignon Sauvage'.

Railway
Cheltenham Spa railway station is located on the Bristol-Birmingham main line, with services to Gloucester, Bristol, Swindon, London Paddington, Cardiff Central, Plymouth and the South West, Birmingham, Derby, the North West, the North East, and Scotland.

The Cheltenham Spa Express, once known as the "Cheltenham Flyer", is a named passenger train connecting Cheltenham with London.

The restored station at Cheltenham Racecourse is the southern terminus of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway heritage railway.

Road
Cheltenham is adjacent to the M5 motorway (between Bristol and Birmingham) and its junction with the A417 to Swindon, and the A40 runs from across the M5 through the town towards Oxford and London.

National Express operate a number of coach services from Cheltenham including the 444 to London and the 222 to Heathrow and Gatwick airports.

Tramroad
Cheltenham was a terminus of the Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad.

Churches


The parish church of Cheltenham is St. Mary's Church, which is the only surviving medieval building in the town. As a result of expansion of the population, absorption of surrounding villages, and the efforts of both evangelical and Anglo-Catholic missions, the town has a large number of other churches, including Trinity Church, one of the largest Anglican congregations outside London, and All Saints', Pittville, where the composer Gustav Holst's father was the organist.

Campanology
The town has two notable rings of bells hung for change ringing. The first is at St. Christopher's (Warden Hill), the lightest ring of church bells in the world. The bells of St. Mark's are renowned for their tonal excellence and ease of "handling". The product of John Taylor's Bell Foundry, they were cast in 1885 and 2007 and have undergone a major refurbishment. There is also a ring of 12 bells dating mainly from the 19th century hung in St. Mary's Church. These were the venue in 2008 for the eliminators of the National 12 Bell Striking contest, in which teams of campanologists from around the world compete to win the Taylor Trophy.

The towers in the locality of Cheltenham belong to the Cheltenham branch of the Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers.

Weather
On 3 August 1990, temperatures reached 37.1C, at the time the highest recorded temperature in Britain, and the highest obtained in the 20th Century.

Twin towns
Cheltenham is twinned with: The town has 'Friendship' status with:
 * 🇫🇷 - Annecy, France
 * 🇺🇸 - Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, USA
 * 🇩🇪 - Göttingen, Germany
 * 🇷🇺 - Sochi, Russia
 * 🇨🇳 - Weihai, China
 * 🇳🇱 - Stampersgat, Netherlands
 * 🇰🇪 - Kisumu, Kenya



Areas of Cheltenham
The districts of Cheltenham include Arle, Benhall, Charlton Kings, Fairview, Fiddlers Green, Hesters Way, Leckhampton, Montpellier, Oakley, Pittville, Prestbury, The Reddings, Rowanfield, St Marks, St Pauls, St Peter's, Springbank, Springfields, Swindon Village, Up Hatherley, Whaddon and Wyman's Brook.

Montpellier
Originally developed in the 1830s in conjunction with the spas, it is now known for its bars, cafés, restaurants and range of specialist shops. In April 2008 Montpellier was one of the most expensive areas in Cheltenham to buy property, with apartments ranging from £300,000 to over £1,000,000, townhouses from around £400,000, and houses over £4,000,000.

Lansdown Crescent
Lansdown Crescent is a Regency period terrace, designed by John Buonarotti Papworth for R.W. and C. Jearrad and constructed in the 1830s. The terrace is convex, and opposite the north-eastern part stands Lansdown Court, an Italianate villa possibly designed by Papworth but more probably by the Jearrads and built about 1830.

Charlton Park
Charlton Park (see above map) is a former 72-acre historic park with mansion house, about a mile south-east of the town centre. From 1935 the parkland gradually became a private residential area, the main housing development taking place between 1976 and 1983. The original mansion house dated from the 13th century; alterations throughout the centuries transformed it from a medieval, timber-framed hall-house into an 18th-century brick-faced mansion in the classical style. In the 1780s the estate was emparked for deer and had magnificent Dutch-style water gardens. After 1935 the old house became part of Charlton Park Convent, and since 1987 has been part of St Edward's School.

Prestbury
Prestbury is a small village on the outskirts of Cheltenham towards Winchcombe and Bishops Cleeve. It contains period houses as well as their modern counterparts. The village is built around the church in the centre. The war memorial in the centre of the village is a constant reminder of the losses made through the two world wars.