My blogpal Joan Kyler recently mentioned that she had been to Cheltenham. (Where has Joan not visited? I asked myself. She’s seen far more of the UK than I have!) So when we were on our most recent trip to England and I realised that we weren’t that far from Cheltenham I thought we should rectify the situation and have a peek at Cheltenham too. No horse racing was involved, we just parked our car at the park and ride and got the bus into the centre of the town.
For some reason I’ve always had the impression that Cheltenham was rather posh, probably because I’ve only seen the racing on TV and then they are only focusing on people dressed up to the hilt in posh frocks and heels. Cheltenham is not posh at all, so that was a big surprise, it was very busy and had the same old same old shops and I got the worst meal with awful service that I can ever remember there. So it isn’t a town I would want to revisit at any time in the future although I’m glad we went to have a look at the place. Apparently The Promenade is famous and we thought we had missed it somehow but we later realised that we had actually been in it and hadn’t been impressed with the place, it didn’t seem at all special.
On the plus side we realised that the park and ride bus trip was really quite short so decided to walk back. This was only possible because I was with Jack as I have absolutely no sense of direction. It meant we could take some photos and we found Gustav Holst’s birthplace too. Here it is, quite a modest house situated off the main street into town.
This is Cheltenham’s Pittville Pump Room. I think this is the back of it. It’s available for hire, a good venue for a wedding I imagine.
This is part of a very smart Georgian/Regency terrace, presumably brick built underneath the plaster covering, different from Edinburgh’s terraces because of course they are made of stone. We may be blase about Georgian buildings as Edinburgh has so many of them.
In commom with just about all English towns it seems, there are a lot of art deco and 1930s style houses on the outskirts of Cheltenham, so that suited Jack with his love of art deco. There must have been an explosion of house building in the 1930s, and we always think of that as being a terrible time what with the depression and everything.
So if they could build houses then, why can’t they do it now? Surely it would help to get the economy moving again, here we are in a double dip recession, as I predicted and all they can think about is taxing us more.
Whoops – I nearly went into rant mode there. Anyway, that was Cheltenham
I had put Cheltenham on my touring list as a second, smaller Bath – but I may re-think that!
Lisa,
If you are going to be pushed for time I definitely wouldn’t bother with Cheltenham. I suppose that you’re planning on visiting Austen related places, I’m sure that Bath won’t be a disappointment, I haven’t been there yet but it’s on my list. It’s quite a long way from Fife so we’re keeping that trip for when my husband retires and we can take our time and go to Somerset, Devon, Cornwall on the same trip.
It sounds like Cheltenham was kind of a disappointment. I like the Georgian terrace, though – very pretty.
I wish home building would pick up here, too. Construction was a major industry in Arizona before the crash so there are a lot of construction workers looking for jobs – very sad.
Anbolyn,
Yes it just wasn’t at all like I expected it to be, not up-market at all.
There are so many people here in need of homes but they can’t get a mortgage because the banks are being ultra careful about who they lend to. I suppose things will pick up sometime, I hope it’s soon.
Oh, I adore Holst…one of my favorite composers! And Bath is lovely – it was one of our day trips when we were in London.
As for building new homes – construction requires investment money up front and buyers on the back end. I don’t know about the UK but in many parts of the US there are oodles of homes sitting empty due to all of the foreclosures. We finally unloaded Mom’s beautiful, meticulously kept townhouse at about a 20% loss because it had sat on the market for so long and the prices just kept dropping as more and more folks defaulted. Sadly not ideal conditions for new home construction.
BTW — postcards (finally) on their way. Will be interesting to see how long they take to reach you . V’s birthday card took 3 weeks (!?!)
Pearl,
I want to go to the American Museum at Bath http://www.americanmuseum.org/ – to see the quilts particularly.
I think because interest rates have been very low for years now there haven’t been many foreclosures here, we don’t have that problem of empty homes but first time buyers are finding it very difficult to get mortgages, which is holding everything back.
It will be interesting to see how long the post takes. Last time I sent something air mail to the US it took nearly three weeks, I wondered if they were using carrier pigeon!
I remember you mentioned that you had played Holst in the school band, for years I had just assumed he was German so I was surprised to see he was actually born in Cheltenham.
My goodness, you make me sound like Richard Halliburton! But I looked at a map and see that I have been in all the western European countries except Ireland, Andorra, and Portugal. That’s not to say I know each of them. Apart from a week in Venice, I’ve only spent a few hours in Italy and several other countries that we only drove through.
And I’ve hardly travelled at all except in Europe and the Caribbean. There are many, many parts of my own country, the United States, that I haven’t seen. We’ve seen much of England because we love it and have been there quite a few times. I’ve been very fortunate.
Joan,
Yes, you’re definitely the best travelled person I ‘know’. I haven’t been to Ireland either although I have been to N. Ireland and the scenery was not great when compared with the west of Scotland. I think if I were you I would want to see more of the US but I suppose it’s such a vast country, and your Jack probably gets fed up travelling within the US. It’s funny – I’m ticking off English counties and you’re ticking off countries! Mind you I’ve never really wanted to go far afield.