Cheltenham (GB)
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Cheltenham is a town in Gloucestershire, England, home to the renowned Cheltenham Festival, 4 days of horse jump racing culminating in the Gold Cup, held annually in March at Cheltenham Racecourse. It's also known for Regency buildings, including the Pittville Pump Room, a remnant of Cheltenham’s past as a spa town. There's fine art at The Wilson museum, and the Victorian Everyman Theatre has an ornate auditorium.
Cheltenham stands on the small River Chelt, which rises nearby at Dowdeswell and runs through the town on its way to the Severn. It was first recorded in 803, as Celtan hom; the meaning has not been resolved with certainty, but latest scholarship concludes that the first element preserves a pre-British noun cilta, 'steep hill', here referring to the Cotswold scarp; the second element may mean 'settlement' or 'water-meadow'. As a royal manor, it features in the earliest pages of the Gloucestershire section of Domesday Book where it is named Chintenha(m). 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. Captain Henry Skillicorne (1678–1763), is credited with being the first entrepreneur to recognise the opportunity to exploit the mineral springs.[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.
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 purportedly the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1871.
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 hundreds 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. In the Second World War, the United States Army Services of Supply, European Theatre of Operations established its primary headquarters at Cheltenham under the direction of Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee, with the flats of the Cheltenham Racecourse becoming a giant storage depot for countless trucks, jeeps, tanks and artillery pieces. Most of this materiel was reshipped to the continent for and after the D-Day invasion. Lee and his primary staff had offices and took residence at Thirlestaine Hall in Cheltenham. 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.
Cheltenham
The 'High Street' GPO was a converted Church on The Promenade in Cheltenham and is now a Wine bar named Revolutions Cheltenham. The Current Cheltenham Post Office, is at 188 High Street. Royal Mail operate the town Delivery & Sorting from Swindon Road.
Cheltenham was issued with its own Maltese Cross in 1840.
_a.jpg) Cover sent in 1843 from Charlton Kings a sub-office to Kington with GB 1d Red Plate 29 LF. Stamp cancelled at Cheltenham with the MX, receiving CDS of Kington. |
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Town Sub-Offices
Albion Street
Bath Road
Charlton Church, Charlton King's
Charlton Kings
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Charlton Kings is situated in the west foothills of the north-south Cotswolds, which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Its surroundings are protected by nature conservation legislation and designations. Lineover Wood SSSI is located on the Cotswold District side of the eastern boundary.
Charlton Kings Common and Leckhampton Hill are also designated as SSSIs by Natural England.he place name comes from Anglo-Saxon times, the word "Charlton" evolved from the term ceorls' tun, a ceorl latterly rendered churl being the Saxon term for an independent peasant landowner and -tun (latterly rendered -ton) meaning an enclosure with a dwelling. This example was established as part of the royal manor and Hundred of Cheltenham, hence the term "Kings" in the name.
Plans for a railway were first drafted in 1872. The Charlton Kings section of the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway line had a troublesome construction mainly due to the clay in the soil, progress was slow, and the line was opened in 1881 with a small station in Charlton Kings. From 1891 the line was also part of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway (M&SWJR) between Cheltenham and Swindon, a north-south route that went on through Swindon to Andover and the south coast ports. Between 1899 and 1914, the Charlton Kings line had frequent services to Cheltenham, Banbury and Swindon and major expresses to cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Southampton. Traffic along the M&SWJR line greatly increased due to the transportation of men and munitions southwards during World War I and World War II. After the war, the line was used much less. The M&SWJR closed on 9 September 1961 and the Cheltenham to Banbury line closed on 15 October 1962, when the station at Charlton Kings finally shut. Electric trams operated by the Cheltenham and District Light Railway were also used in Charlton Kings between 1903 and 1930 when they were replaced by buses.
A house in Cudnall Street has a particular literary connection. Its mirror inspired author Lewis Carroll to write the story Through the Looking-Glass.
Cheltenham (St. James's) Station Office
St James's Square Station office now dismantled. The first station was opened by the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway (C&GWU) on 23 October 1847, as Cheltenham. It was the terminus of the final section of that company's line from a junction with the Great Western Railway (GWR) at Swindon, which had opened in stages: to Kemble (and Cirencester) on 31 May 1841; to Gloucester on 12 May 1845, and finally to Cheltenham on 23 October 1847.
Originally, the station was laid to the broad gauge, but this was converted to standard gauge in May 1872.
On 9 September 1894 it was replaced by another station also named Cheltenham, on a nearby site, slightly to the east, which had two curved semi-island platforms; two more were added later.A Waitrose supermarket now stands on the site of St. James station. A plaque has been affixed to the entrance of the store by Cheltenham Civic Society to commemorate the now-demolished terminus.
East End
Gloucester Road
Great Norwood Street
Hewlett Street
Telegraph Code Cheltenham D
Keynsham Street
Lower High Street
Montpellier
Telegraph Code Cheltenham A
Moorend
Telegraph Code Cheltenham F
Pittville
Telegraph Code Cheltenham G
St. Mark's
Telegraph Code Cheltenham H
