Cheltenham (St. Mary)
The town is pleasantly situated on an extensive plain, sheltered on the north and east by the Cotswold Hills, and consists of numerous fine streets, the principal of which is more than a mile and a half in length, containing many excellent ranges of building, interspersed occasionally with houses of more ancient date and less pretending character. To the south of this street are a crescent and colonnade, and the upper and the lower promenade, lately built; and on each side are dwellings displaying much beauty and variety of architectural decoration. The masonic hall, in Portland-street, is a handsome edifice in the style of a Roman mausoleum, completed in 1823, and decorated in front and on one side with the insignia of the order of freemasonry. The streets are well paved, and lighted with gas, under an act procured in the 59th of George III. and amended in the 2nd of George IV.: the Gas-light and Coke Company was formed pursuant to an act passed in 1819; and in 1824 an act was obtained for the establishment of water-works, under the direction of a company. An act was also passed, in 1833, for the better sewerage, draining, and cleansing of the town. About half a mile towards the south is the Montpelier spa: the pumproom, a spacious rotunda, has a noble colonnade in front, above the centre of which is the figure of a lion couchant. Nearer the town stood the Imperial spa, an elegant building in the Grecian style of architecture, opened in 1818; this, however, has disappeared, and on its site has been erected the Queen's Hotel, one of the largest hotels in Europe. The Old well, or original spa, was enlarged by the erection of a new pump-room in 1803. There are also the chalybeate spa, opened in 1802; the Cambray chalybeate spa, discovered in 1807; and Alstone spa, opened in 1809. On the north side of Cheltenham is Pittville, where a new town has been planned on a magnificent scale, by Joseph Pitt, Esq.: the pump-room, of which the first stone was laid on the 4th of May, 1825, is a grand edifice, erected at an expense of more than £20,000. A fine assemblage of houses, also, has been formed to the south of the Montpelier pump-room, on the Lansdowne and Suffolk estates; it consists of a crescent of 48 handsome houses, and of elegant terraces, and parades, constituting by far the most splendid part of the town. Cheltenham contains warm, cold, medicated, and vapour baths, furnished with all the requisite appendages; hotels, affording every accommodation; and several hundred lodging-houses, many of which are beautifully fitted up. The various libraries, reading-rooms, and musical repositories, are well conducted; and concerts and assemblies take place regularly during the season, under the superintendence of a master of the ceremonies, in a suite of rooms completed in 1816. The theatre, built in 1805, by Mr. J. Watson, a coadjutor of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, was destroyed by fire on the 3rd of May, 1839. Races took place annually, on the adjoining eminence, but they have been for some years past wholly discontinued.
The trade, exclusively of the ordinary business necessary for the supply of the inhabitants and the numerous visiters, consists principally in malt and in various kinds of medicinal salts, for the preparation of which latter there is an extensive manufactory on the road to Bath. The Birmingham and Bristol railway has one of its principal stations here, a spacious building of the Doric order, with a colonnade extending along the whole of the front, which is on the Queen's road. The market is on Thursday and Saturday: fairs are held on the second Thursday in April, Aug. 5th, the second Thursday in September, and the third Thursday in December, for cattle and cheese: also statute-fairs on the first and second Thursday after Michaelmas-day. The market-house, a handsome and commodious building, was erected in 1823, at the expense of Lord Sherborne. By the act of the 2nd of William IV., cap. 45, Cheltenham was constituted a borough, with the privilege of returning a member to parliament, to be elected by the £10 householders: the limits of the borough are co-extensive with those of the parish, comprising about 3650 acres; the returning officer is appointed by the sheriff for the county. The town is within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, who hold a petty-session for the division every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday: a high bailiff and constables are appointed at the court leet of the lord of the manor; and the local affairs are under the control of commissioners appointed by an act passed in the 2nd of George IV. The powers of the county debt-court of Cheltenham, established in 1847, extend over the registration-district of Cheltenham. By an ancient manorial custom, confirmed by act of parliament, land descends as by common law, but the eldest female inherits solely. The new gaol, near St. George's square, is a convenient edifice, erected in 1814.
The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, about £1000; patrons, certain Trustees; impropriator, J. Pitt, Esq. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment, for the hamlet of Cheltenham, in 1801; and for the tythings of Arle and Arlestone, in 1830. The parochial church is an ancient cruciform structure, in the early, decorated, and later English styles, with a tower rising from the intersection, and surmounted by a lofty octagonal spire. On the east side of the north transept is a grand circular window, 15 feet in diameter, divided into 33 compartments, and filled with tracery of the decorated and later styles intermixed; the east window of the chancel, and others, are also fine compositions: there is a curious, ornamented piscina in the chancel. In the churchyard is an ancient stone cross, of a single shaft, with an ascent of several steps. The church of the Holy Trinity, in Portland-street, a handsome structure in the later English style, was erected by subscription, but finished by Lord Sherborne, and was consecrated in 1823. This is a chapel of ease to the mother church, and is served by stipendiary curates. St. Paul's church, an edifice of the Grecian-Ionic order, with a portico and tower, was completed in 1831, at a cost of £6500, half of which was defrayed by a grant from the Parliamentary Commissioners. This, also, is a chapel of ease to the parent church. St. James' church, Suffolksquare, St. John's, Berkeley-street, and Christ-Church, Lansdowne, were erected under what is called the Forty Years' act, 5 George IV., cap. 5, by which the patronage is in Trustees for forty years, after which period it will lapse to the incumbent of Cheltenham. The livings are perpetual curacies, but without districts assigned; and the income of each is derived from pew-rents, having no other endowment. Another church, St. Peter's, on the Tewkesbury road, was commenced in 1847, in the Norman style; a district has been assigned to it under the act 6th and 7th Victoria, cap. 37, and on the consecration of the church the district will be constituted an ecclesiastical parish. A spacious burial-ground has been purchased by the parishioners. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, the Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon, Independents, Wesleyan and other Methodists, and Roman Catholics. The Baptist meeting-house has a burial-ground attached to it; and there is a fund of £25 per annum, for distribution among the poor of that congregation.
The Free Grammar school was established and endowed in 1574, by Richard Pates; the endowment, augmented by Queen Elizabeth, produces a salary of £30 per annum to the master, who is appointed by Corpus Christi College, Oxford. There are eight scholarships in Pembroke College, Oxford, founded in 1682, by George Townsend, for boys from Gloucester, Cheltenham, Chipping-Campden, and Northleach, with preference in presentation to his donatives of Uxbridge and Colnbrook: the same benefactor instituted and endowed a school here, for poor boys, and similar schools in the parishes of Winchcomb, Chipping-Campden, Northleach, and Nether Guyting, or Blockley, and for apprenticing them he appropriated part of the income, which amounts to £207. The Rev. William Stanley, in 1704, gave land producing £25 per annum, subject to a rent-charge of £8, the residue being applied to the same purpose. A portion of an endowment by Lady Capel, amounting to £37. 10. per annum, is paid for the instruction of poor children. There are also national, Lancasterian, and infants' schools, maintained by subscription. A proprietary college, the object of which is to supply a good general education, founded on sound religious principles, was opened on the 22nd of June, 1843: the building is entirely of stone raised from Dodswell-hill, near the town, and has a facade 240 feet in length; the cost of its erection exceeded £8000. It contains 300 boys, "the sons of noblemen and gentlemen," who are prepared for the universities in the classical department, and for the professions in the civil and military departments. Almshouses for six persons were founded and endowed by Richard Pates, in 1574. A "dispensary and casualty ward," established in 1813, and lately enlarged, is supported by subscription; and there are many other charitable institutions, among which may be noticed the female orphan asylum, the Coburg Society for the relief of indigent married women in child-birth, and the Dorcas Society. The poor law union of Cheltenham comprises 13 parishes or places, and contains a population of 40,221.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.