visitcheltenham

The most complete Regency town in England

Cheltenham has been welcoming visitors for nearly three hundred years, ever since the discovery of the first natural spring. The very first Cheltenham Guide on 1781 described a visit to the town as "a journey of health and pleasure". According to legend the first medicinal waters were discovered when pigeons were noticed pecking at salty deposits which had formed around a spring on the present site of Cheltenham Ladies College.

In 1788 King George III came for five weeks to take the water cure; he was followed by many aristocratic and distinguished figures of the period, and Cheltenham's transformation into a fashionable resort began.