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Archiver > SOG-UK > 2004-01 > 1073718497


From: David Hawgood <>
Subject: [SoG] re: CARTER of Cheltenham (was "Stuck")
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:08:17 -0500


Robin wrote:
>I wonder how large those Parish towns surrounding Cheltenham were in the
1830's? One would have thought that Ernest CARTER's father, Henry Carter
would have worked in the 'big smoke' of Cheltenham as a dentist, rather
than
in the outlying countryside?<

It wasn't smoke that made Cheltenham big, it was mineral springs at the
foot of the Cotswold hills.

Charlton Kings had a population of 2478 in 1831, Prestbury 1231,
Leckhampton 929 Cheltenham 22,900. The expansion of Cheltenham was based on
the health-giving mineral springs at the foot of the Cotswold Hills that
made it "Cheltenham Spa". In the season there were 15,000 visitors staying
in hundreds of guest houses. There were mineral springs in Prestbury and
Charlton Kings as well as in Cheltenham. "Pitville Pump Room" was in
Cheltenham but on the north of the Borough very close to Prestbury. Looking
at an 1835 map of Cheltenham, the eastern boundary came very close in to
the centre, so Charlton Kings was probably less than a mile from the
centre. Cheltenham College was established in 1841 in the southern part of
the borough, within half a mile of Leckhampton (I should know, some
training runs from College took us up to the top of Leckhampton Hill).

regards,
David Hawgood.


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