Enquiries
If you have an enquiry about the history of Cheltenham and its inhabitants, please email our researcher Jill Waller jill.waller@virginmedia.com or fill in the Local History Enquiry form. Please read our Terms and Conditions.
If you have a general query about the Society, please contact the Secretary by completing the Contact form.
Jill has been researching and writing about Cheltenham local history for nearly 30 years. Since 2018 she has been answering queries on behalf of the Cheltenham Local History Society.
The service is free, but you may wish to make a donation to the Society if you are happy with the response to your query. Our donations policy can be found here.
The huge range of enquiries that have been answered includes the exact location of a Schafer beetle habitat at the Gas Works in the 1930s, the provenance of an Egyptian mummy, (from the Cheltenham Literary & Philosophical Institution to the Liverpool World Museum via a dump and Cheltenham College), the story behind a sampler stitched in Tivoli in 1854, the reason for a set of large rusted hinges in a Montpellier flowerbed, and a supposed tunnel under the High Street. Jill’s research articles on ‘Pigeon gate’: the Royal Old Well Gates at The Crippetts and Australia’s national poet Adam Lindsay Gordon can be read in our Newsletters. Further examples of Jill’s work can be found on our Research Articles page.
With access to maps, directories, newspapers and other resources, including local knowledge and the experience of the membership, Jill would welcome your query, whether to find a location under its old name, help you with the history of your house, or tell you what an area of the town was like when your ancestors lived here. If you have any query about Cheltenham and its past, please email Jill.
If you would like to carry out some research yourself, please visit our Resources page.