Welcome to Cheltenham Local History Society

Welcome and thank you for looking at our website. Here you will find a wealth of ideas and information about the abundant and varied history of our town for you to enjoy.

The free resources available include many articles from our annual journals, a collection of local newspapers, street directories, written records, research papers, newsletters and publications. Then there is information about our projects, walks and visits, and our popular talks programme.

We are also active in the community, positively promoting local history with our input to The Wilson, our support for Gloucestershire Archives, and input to Cheltenham’s Heritage Action Plan.

We can help with enquiries about the history of Cheltenham and its inhabitants.

Click here for our Enquiries service

For general queries about our Society, or to contact the committee, please click below.

Click here to contact us
LATEST NEWS

New resource for primary schools

Recently added to our website – an exciting new brochure to support the development of topics within Key Stage 2 of the National Curriculum. Please visit our Schools webpage to download the brochure, complete with a directory of local history resources, ideas for classroom topics and a case study.

Our banner image is Thomas Robins’ 1748 West Prospect of the Spaw & Town of Cheltenham and we are grateful to Alex Clark for granting permission to use it. Steve Blake’s article on page 11 of our November 2021 Newsletter explains its origins.

We are grateful to Jill Waller and Sue Rowbotham for allowing us to use views of Cheltenham from their collections.