| ABOUT CHELTENHAM |
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| Visitor's Guide |
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MONTPELLIER, LANSDOWNMontpellier is known as one of the most attractive and fashionable areas of Cheltenham. Its distinctive architecture and many café’s and bars has gained Montpellier the reputation of having continental flavour. In the 18th and 19th centuries the name of French spa town of Montpellier had been a byword for a pleasant healthy place – and that name was chosen in 1809 by Henry Thompson for his newly established spa.
It was laid out in the early 18th century with attractive villas and terraces surrounding spacious ornamental gardens, now known as Montpellier Gardens. In the 1830s and 1840s specialist shops were built and Montpellier developed as a specialist shopping area, the character of which it still retains today. Most picturesque is Montpellier Walk, where shops are fronted by 32 caryatids. Montpellier is home to famous Cheltenham Ladies’ College, which was established in the mid-19th century for the daughters of Cheltenham’s gentlemen. It has a worldwide reputation, with many a pupil being a daughter of a famous celebrity.
Named after a fashionable part of Bath, Lansdown is a beautiful garden suburb, with terraces, a crescent and a large square and stretches all the way from Montpellier to Cheltenham railway station. The estate was also developed by Henry Thompson in the beginning of the 19th century. His son carried on with the project and invited a London architect J. B. Papworth to design a fashionable residential estate to adjoin the road to Gloucester. Today many of the great brick-built, stone-fronted houses of Lansdown has been divided into offices or hotels.
HISTORYMontpellier has a special place in history of Cheltenham. It is here where the first Cheltenham spring was discovered in 1716. Thanks to magnificent villas and terraces of Montpellier, Lansdown, Bayshill and Suffolks, Cheltenham gained the reputation of being one of the most beautiful town in England. |
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THINGS TO DO, PLACES TO SEE
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