About Cheltenham

Cheltenham Tourist Information, GloucestershireCheltenham is the most complete Regency town in Britain and one of the few English towns in which traditional and contemporary architecture complement each other.Statue of Holst in Imperial ParkCheltenham lies beneath Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds and above the vale of the River Severn. It is known as ‘The Western Gateway to the Cotswolds’. The village of Broadway being known as ‘The Northern Gateway to the Cotswolds’.This edge-of-the Cotswolds spa town is hard to beat for refined elegance and Regency terraces, annual festivals, Ladies’ College and racecourse. Also fortnightly farmers markets, classy shops and restaurants all surrounded by glorious countryside. Cheltenham was selected by The Sunday Times newspaper (March 2014) as one of the best places to live in Britain.From humble beginnings as a modest market town, Cheltenham became one of the most fashionable health resorts in the country. In 1716, in a meadow outside the town, pigeons were found to be pecking at what turned out to be salt crystals at a spring which led to the establishment of the town as a Spa. The importance of the pigeons leading to the discovery of the ‘Spa Waters’ is reflected in three pigeons being included in the Cheltenham Coat of Arms.King George III arrived to treat his infirmities in 1788, rows of Regency houses then appeared – and the town then known as Cheltenham Spa was born.Visitors can still sample the Spa Waters at the beautiful Pittville Pump Room. John Forbes was the architect and interestingly sentenced for fraud to transportation for life to Australia. The sentence was subsequently commuted to a few years in prison.The Promenade is considered to be one of the most beautiful thoroughfares in the country, with its tree lined avenue flanked by smart shops and cafés. The composer Gustav Holst was born at 4 Clarence Road in 1874 and his childhood home is now the Holst Birthplace Museum where you can see the piano on which he composed The Planets. The Antarctic explorer Edward Wilson was born Cheltenham in 1872.The Regency town of Cheltenham is where Zara Phillips (Queen’s eldest granddaughter) and husband Mike Tindall have their home (see Royalty in the Cotswolds).Visitors from all round the world flock to Cheltenham for the International Festival of Literature and Music, and the town is the western gateway to the Cotswolds.Neptune Fountain at CheltenhamCheltenham, on the edge of the Cotswolds, is an inland spa resort of handsome Regency architecture, broad avenues and fine parks. The medicinal waters can be taken at several sites in the town but mainly at the Pittville Pump Room whose blue dome rises above the lakes of Pittville Park. You can still drink from its original pump, and it is England’s only source of natural alkaline water.The principal street of Cheltenham is the Promenade with its fine regency terraces and Neptune Fountain. Montpellier is where Cheltenham’s elite reside. Here, small boutiques jostle for space with wine bars and restaurants such as Brasserie Blanc, Raymond Blanc’s informal spin-off of Le Manoir at Oxford.The centrepiece is the Montpellier Gardens, blooming with flowers and containing a fountain surmounted by a bespectacled Gustav Holst, who was born in Cheltenham and now stands with his baton raised aloft above the water jets.Cheltenham is world famous for it’s horse racing course at Prestbury Park and the main hurdles event being the Gold Cup National Hunt Festival week in March.The town is home to the famous Cheltenham Ladies College known for its outstanding academic excellence.VOTED ONE OF BEST TOP 5 SHOPPING STREETS IN BRITAIN (2011)The Promenade in Cheltenham has been named as one of the top five best shopping streets in Britain in a poll for Google Street View.