Cheltenham is a well-to-do market town on the edge of the Cotswolds and home to over 100,000 people. It owes its growth and character to the discovery of health-giving springs in the 18th century. It boasts copious streets of fine Regency architecture. Its largest employer shuns the spotlight while engaging in surveillance activities on an international scale. And it grabs the spotlight in March each year when racegoers flock to attend the annual Cheltenham Festival, an event I carefully avoided when timing my visit. All I saw was the aftermath. [Visit Cheltenham][10 photos]
This is the Montpellier Spa, Cheltenham's first Georgian pumproom, which replaced a wooden structure on the same site when it became clear there was a lot of money to be made from wellness. The exterior features a colonnade of doric columns and a domed rotunda added in 1824 to top off a new ballroom. The great and good came flocking, and to walk in Montpellier Pleasure Gardens after taking the waters, at least until the fad for spa-going faded in Victorian times. By the turn of our century this splendid building had become a mere branch of Lloyds Bank and since 2017 has been a brasserie for The Ivy, so is catering ostensibly to the original clientele. The small Co-op tucked in alongside lowers the tone somewhat, but elsewhere along Montpellier Street it's designer shops and luxury items all the way.
The premier road through Cheltenham town centre is called Promenade and is faced by impressively ostentatious buildings including several hotels and the town council offices. I wasn't sure if the gazebos outside Clarence House were a temporary feature to accommodate Festival hospitality overflow or a permanent amenity for Gloucestershire's ladies who lunch. Up the road the Neptune Fountain was sadly waterless, which may just have been to stop racegoers making merry but left the sea god and his shell-chariot looking somewhat marooned. This Italianate fountain is fed by the local river, unsurprisingly called the Chelt, which runs in a culvert under the heart of the town. Close by is the turrety bulk of Cheltenham Ladies College, one of Britain's most prestigious boarding schools, which was built on the site of the town's first mineral springs. Water is never far away from the history of central Cheltenham even if it's turned off.
Because I was following the Historical Cheltenhamself-guided tour I'd thus far only seen a rather splendid side to the town centre and wondered whether ordinary people also shopped here. The High Street answered that question with its Primark, John Lewis and M&S, plus if you walked far enough eventually an Iceland, Millets and Betfred. I wondered why Superdry had been included in the tour itinerary but it turned out to be because the brand was first established here in 2003, growing out of a clothing stall on Cheltenham market. Another locally-sourced business was the Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society, inaugurated in the town in 1850 and finally dissipating under the weight of its ambition in 2009. As for modern malls the biggie is the Regent Arcade which contains what's thought to be the world's tallest mechanical timepiece, the Wishing Fish Clock. It was designed by Masquerade author Kit Williams and features a goose that lays golden eggs and a fish that blows bubbles every 30 minutes... but is alas currently undergoing essential maintenance. Visiting Cheltenham is all in the timing.
I also messed up visiting the local celebrity's museum. That'd be composer Gustav Holst who was born in a middle class townhouse on Clarence Street in 1874 that's now open to the public. It includes the piano on which he composed The Planets, not that he did that here, having left Cheltenham for London before he was 20. It also includes a Regency Sitting Room decked out as if his grandfather were giving piano lessons, not that he ever did that here either. Unfortunately Holst Victorian House closed at the end of February for a few weeks of "exciting redevelopment work" so I missed out on getting inside, indeed I'd never have guessed from the exterior that it was a museum at all. Instead I made do with looking at his statue in Imperial Gardens, a bespectacled man with arms and baton aloft surrounded by yet another safely-drained fountain.
The town's chief cultural attraction is The Wilson, an art gallery-slash-museum named after polar explorer Edward Wilson (one of Captain Scott's final tentmates). It's recently been extended via a modern glass slice, RIBA-approved, with a central staircase linking to an impressively varied selection of galleries. One has a nationally renowned collection of Arts & Crafts goods and locally-inspired furniture (like a micro V&A). Another does local history through art (though not in much depth). Other galleries host works by contemporary local artists, including a whopping textile swoosh and that witchy ceramic I showed you yesterday. There's usually a visiting exhibition - currently on the theme of Print with works by Picasso, Hockney, Yinka Shonibare and another chance to see Simon Patterson's The Great Bear. Just don't be put off by the fact the entire ground floor appears to be a cafe, the real nourishment is to be found upstairs.
I wonder how first time racegoers cope with Cheltenham's geography. The station lies adrift in the suburbs a good mile to the west of the town centre while the racecourse is another mile and a bit to the north. Getting to the Festival is a bit like being dropped off at Paddington and expected to walk to Camden Town. Near the end of the climb comes the Pittville estate, a mid 19th century new town comprising giant spacious homes in Greek revival style built to take advantage of Cheltenham's spa status. Pittville Park adds a stripe of formal greenery, much wandered, and above the ornamental lake sits the majestic pillared Pittville Pump Room. This housed the town's last and largest pumproom and still dispenses mineral waters, should it be open, but more likely you'll have to make do with bottled water from the Orangery cafe alongside.
The racecourse itself is on the very edge of town off the Evesham Road. It hosts regular Jump meetings between October and May, the next being mid-April, but the big one was last week when an avalanche of equinefolk, gamblers, drinkers and the Irish descended. A heck of a lot of additional infrastructure was required, including a ticket office they haven't taken down yet, assorted broadcasting equipment being taken away by the truckful and a footbridge I watched being disassembled. Annoyingly some of this stuff continues to block the publicfootpath that runs along the edge of the course, which remains closed, so I never actually saw the circuit where the Gold Cup is run. The backdrop of Cleeve Hill and the rim of the Cotswolds looked pretty impressive though.
In Benhall, another suburb on pretty much the other side of town, lies the circular headquarters of mastersnoopers GCHQ. 'The Doughnut' was opened in 2003 to consolidate the workforce and is surrounded by a protective ring of security fencing and cul-de-sacs. You get some idea of the scale of the workforce from the size of the car parks, one around the building and a separate enormous compound across the road, plus the fact the local bus company runs a regular service terminating at the gates. Among the staff I saw arriving for a shift at the cyberface were youngsters with lanyards, middle-aged men in suits and white-haired professor-types with improbable headgear, all candidate characters for some fictional spy drama except this was the real thing. And even though the complex rubs up against some very ordinary roads, a ring of cameras is keeping a beady eye on everything and numerous signs warn 'No Photography', so it did feel a bit uncomfortable contriving to walk by. I don't think they have a rule outlawing snaps from the top deck of a passing bus, which is where I took mine later, but I bet I'd been added to their database long before I got that far.
