Woolly says – The darker clouds in the sky weren’t going to spoil my day, although I kept a wary eye on them as we sped along the motorway towards the day’s destination. Both Jo and I had wanted to visit this town and today was the day.
Cheltenham also known as Cheltenham Spa, and sometimes called “the Garden Town of England” is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the most complete Regency town in Britain, so lots of Georgian architecture to feast upon.
The town hosts several festivals of culture throughout the year, but is probably best known for the horse racing Gold Cup. Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll were regular visitors to a house in Cudnall Street, Charlton Kings – a suburb of Cheltenham. This house was owned by Alice Liddell’s grandparents, and still contains the mirror, or looking glass, that was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s novel Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1871. Arriving at the car park I could hardly wait to investigate, and our first building was literally next to the car park.
The Pittville Pump Room was built by the architect John Forbes between 1825 and 1830. The Grade I listed building contains the original Pump which pumped out the water that made the town so famous. Surrounded by huge columns the structure was rather fetching although sadly the exterior was all we would get to see; this didn’t stop me from peering through the smudged glass to try and see the ballroom with its grand piano.
Three statues had been added to the building in 1827 of the goddesses Hygeia, Aesculapius and Hippocrates, for such a large structure they did seem very tiny. The pump room now houses a café and as it wasn’t time for a snack apparently, we wandered across the lawns to let Alfie the Dog enjoy Pittville Park.
Joseph Pitt, the developer of Pittville, wanted to create a 100-acre (0.40 km2) estate, and as the pump room was being built the landscape gardener Richard Ware set about developing the park. Huge trees were everywhere, and I had to wonder at the stories they could tell in the centuries they had overlooked the area.
A lake with a lovely rockery caught my eye along with its two small bridges that took us towards the town.
The promenade continued past large Georgian residences, once enjoyed by single families with an attic full of servants but now mainly split into flats and dwellings for many.
As the park came to an end, we stopped to admire the gates before turning our attention to a house just across the road. Number 4 had been the birthplace of Gustav Theodore Holst (21st September 1874 to 25th May 1934) an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets.
Music that I remembered well from my childhood as my Dad was a huge fan of the composer. Having already check for doggie access and knowing that Alfie wasn’t welcome we continued our walk into the main part of the town passing a very grand Masonic Lodge.
Woolly says – The town was busy and full of shop fronts some open and many closed and neglected. Above the frontages were further signs of the Georgian influence.
A large sculpture sat under the leafy promenade area known as the Hare and the Minotaur. The sculpture was initially part of a temporary exhibition of the work of Gloucestershire based artist Sophie Ryder created in 1995, the overwhelming public response to the exhibition fuelled a campaign to retain one of Sophie Ryder’s sculptures and the Hare and Minotaur was acquired by public subscription in 1998. It was impressive and having had my photo opportunity we moved onto the next area of the town.
The Royal Crescent was one of the places that Jo was keen to see and having walked round a corner it seemed that we had found it, sadly it wasn’t very big at all and although quite grand in the buildings the bus station opposite detracted quite heavily from the once elegant terrace.
Better things were to come as we doubled back on ourselves and paused to take in the brightly planted gardens of the Municipal buildings which had finished construction in 1840, vibrant window boxes complemented the planting.
A cenotaph in memory of our fallen soldiers was being scrubbed down and a little further along with a memorial to Dr Edward Wilson one of the explorers who died with Scott of the Antarctic and a son of the city.
Marking the end of the Promenade was the sculpture and fountain of Neptune, built in 1892 it was based on the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome but with far less tourist jostling to see it.
Across the road were the Imperial Gardens which both Jo and I had been looking forward to, laid out just after the Second World War each year approximately 25,000 bedding plants are used to produce the magnificent floral displays, sadly for us today as the day when they were replacing all of them! Only one bed gave us an idea of how wonderful it would look once finished. It did however have a statue of Holst standing in the middle of a pool.
Across the road was the grand façade of the Queens Hotel built during Victoria’s reign. A memorial to those that had lost their lives int eh Crimea stood in front of it, originally a cannon had taken centre stage but had been donated to the war effort.
A short walk led us into the Montpelier area of the town, a very posh area given the prices in the shop fronts and a restaurant called The Ivy. What made this area unusual was the number of armless ladies in attendance. Known as the Montpellier Caryatids they had arrived in 1843 and were modelled on the London sculptor work, Rossi.
Turning back on ourselves we started our walk back to the car passing the very grand town hall where people were queuing to enter for that day’s performance. It was an interesting town but sadly looking very shabby in places and not everything had lived up to our expectation, but it had given the three of us a good long walk and as the mutt raced in and out of the trees in the park Jo and I discussed the most important topic of food.