Cheltenham Promenade - Framed Picture - 12" x 16"

Cheltenham (Cheltenham Spa), is a regency spa town in Gloucestershire.

The town has the motto of Salubritas et Eruditio meaning 'health and education', Cheltenham has been a health and holiday spa town resort since the discovery of mineral springs in 1716 and has a high number of internationally renowned and historic schools.

It was first recorded in 803, as Celtan hom; the meaning 'steep hill'. As a Royal manor, it features in the earliest pages of the Gloucestershire section of Domesday Book where it is named Chintenha. The town was awarded a market charter in 1226.

Cheltenham has been a health and holiday spa town resort since the discovery of mineral springs there in 1716. Captain Henry Skillicorne, is credited with being the first entrepreneur to recognise the opportunity to exploit the mineral springs.

The visit of George III with the queen and royal princesses in 1788 set a stamp of fashion on the spa. The spa waters can still be sampled at the Pittville Pump Room, built for this purpose and completed in 1830; it is a centrepiece of Pittville, a planned extension of Cheltenham to the north, undertaken by Joseph Pitt, who laid the first stone 4 May 1825.

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.

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 tens 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.