He built a pump to regulate the flow of water and erected an elaborate well-house complete with a ballroom and upstairs billiard room to entertain his customers. After moving to Cheltenham in 1738, he immediately began improvements intended to attract visitors to his spa. Skillicorne's wide travels as a merchant had prepared him to see the potential lying dormant on this inherited property. Her father, William Mason, had done little in his lifetime to promote the healing properties of the mineral water apart from limited advertising and building a small enclosure over the spring. The retired 'master mariner' became co-owner of the property containing Cheltenham's first mineral spring upon his 1732 marriage to Elizabeth Mason. Captain Henry Skillicorne (1678–1763), is credited with being the first entrepreneur to recognise the opportunity to exploit the mineral springs. Though little remains of its pre-spa history, Cheltenham has been a health and holiday spa town resort since the discovery of mineral springs there in 1716. The town was awarded a market charter in 1226. As a royal manor, it features in the earliest pages of the Gloucestershire section of Domesday Book where it is named Chintenha. It was first recorded in 803, as Celtan hom the meaning has not been resolved with certainty, but latest scholarship concludes that the first element preserves a Celtic noun cilta, 'steep hill', here referring to the Cotswold scarp the second element may mean 'settlement' or 'water-meadow'.

In steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup is the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held every March.Ĭheltenham stands on the small River Chelt, which rises nearby at Dowdeswell and runs through the town on its way to the Severn. The town hosts several cultural festivals, often featuring nationally and internationally famous contributors and attendees they include the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, the Cheltenham Science Festival, the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Cheltenham International Film Festival, the Cheltenham Cricket Festival, and the Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the most complete Regency town in Britain. Cheltenham ( / ˈ tʃ ɛ l t n ə m/), also known as Cheltenham Spa, and sometimes called 'the Garden Town of England', is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England.

Cheltenham township tax office