GEORGIAN CHELTENHAM

This reissue of a 1928 classic is doubly fascinating, conveying as it does the elegance of a Georgian spa town through an early 20th century viewpoint. A poignant detail is that Captain Willoughby completed a significant portion of the book before the Great War, where he was lost at Gallipoli. Starting with the town's history, the authors cover the period from AD 48 and the Roman occupation of Britain, through the Dark Ages and the Norman Conquest to medieval times when the town was connected with the royal scandal of Henry II and Fair Rosamond. Land changed hands regularly as knights went off to fight in the crusades or in France. Henry VIII plundered the town, and a century later Cheltenham supported the Royalist cause in the civil wars. The discovery of mineral waters in the 18th century made it a fashionable spa and prosperity returned. John Wesley, creator of the Methodist Church, had strong connections with Cheltenham and preached there several times, though he was not very satisfied with the response. Sarah Siddons, the greatest actress of her era, and her brother John Kemble started their careers on the boards of Cheltenham theatre. The novelist Fanny Burney, "a creature with a man's mind in a frail and feminine body", described in her diary the 1788 visit of King George III, who came to take the waters for the affliction which was later to see him diagnosed as mad. "They were served with the waters by Mrs Forty, the well-known pumper". In 1807 the Prince of Wales visited and in the Assembly Rooms people were even asking the Master of Ceremonies to extend the dancing beyond eleven o'clock. Other visitors include Edmund Kean, Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, and the French royal family. Racing was well established during the Regency, with the fashionable figure Berkeley Craven shooting himself when he lost all his money on the horse Gladiator in the 1836 Derby. 224pp, paperback, illustrations.