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Latest News
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Updated November 2021
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These Magnificent Rooms
The following talks were given in partnership with Pittville Pump Room Revival as part of Heritage Open Days 2021.
Catherine Martin: The season at Pittville Pump Room.
Hilary Simpson: What was a Public breakfast?.
Chris Archibald: What was special about Pittville's mineral water?.
Steven Blake: Did anyone ever live in the Pump Room?.
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GPS-guided Architectural Walk
The latest addition to the History Walks site is a GPS-guided Architectural Walk devised by Andrea Creedon. Follow the instructions to download the Pocketsights app, to your phone, talk yourself to Pittville Gates (or run the app remotely) and take yourself round the 34-stop tour.
Your phone will guide you to the stops, and if you select the audio option, you can hear the text instead of reading it. Don't forget to stop off for coffee! Download the app here.
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The story of the Pump Room statues
Three statues look down out towards Cheltenham from the Pump Room roof, welcoming visitors. Each represents an aspect of health and well-being, symbolised by characters from Ancient Greek history and mythology: Asclepius, god of medicine, his daughter Hygeia, and Hippocrates, one of the founders of modern medicine. But what is their story? Why were they all taken down before WW2? When did they return? Is Asclepius really holding a baseball bat? Answers and more in Judy Langhorn’s Pump Room roofline statues.
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Mary Jane Briggs and Vallombrosa School
Mary Jane Briggs was the celebrated principal of Vallombrosa School in Pittville Circus Road. Her pupils knew her as the lady who had been shipwrecked off New Zealand and held captive by the Maoris, and who led war games on Battledown Hill. She was an early suffragist, arguing in 1867 that the word “man” should be replaced by “person” in the new Reform Bill. Mark Penfold tells her remarkable story in Mary Jane Briggs – Maker of Men.
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Pittville Education
When we came to transcribe details of the houses in Pittville Circus Road for our online database, we noticed that several of the large houses in Pittville Circus Road were used during the 19th century as schools. One house was even used as a convent, but that is another story. Mark Penfold took up the challenge of researching these educational establishments, and you can read the results of his detective work in Education in Pittville: Preparatory Schools in Pittville Circus Road.
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A zoo in Pittville
In the 1830s there was a danger that Cheltenham would boast two zoos, one in The Park and one in Pittville. In fact, the Pittville project never got beyond the drawing-board, and The Park proposal got little further. After the discovery of an illustrated plan of the Pittville zoo in the Gloucestershire Archives, Stuart Manton set to researching the story and uncovered a web of intrigue and bitter rivalry. Read his fascinating article, Cheltenham’s Zoo Wars, on the Pittville History Works site.
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Explore the site further by clicking on the tabs at the top of this page...
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Updated November 2021
*** *** ***
These Magnificent Rooms
The following talks were given in partnership with Pittville Pump Room Revival as part of Heritage Open Days 2021.
Catherine Martin: The season at Pittville Pump Room.
Hilary Simpson: What was a Public breakfast?.
Chris Archibald: What was special about Pittville's mineral water?.
Steven Blake: Did anyone ever live in the Pump Room?.
*** *** ***
GPS-guided Architectural Walk
The latest addition to the History Walks site is a GPS-guided Architectural Walk devised by Andrea Creedon. Follow the instructions to download the Pocketsights app, to your phone, talk yourself to Pittville Gates (or run the app remotely) and take yourself round the 34-stop tour.
Your phone will guide you to the stops, and if you select the audio option, you can hear the text instead of reading it. Don't forget to stop off for coffee! Download the app here.
*** *** ***
The story of the Pump Room statues
Three statues look down out towards Cheltenham from the Pump Room roof, welcoming visitors. Each represents an aspect of health and well-being, symbolised by characters from Ancient Greek history and mythology: Asclepius, god of medicine, his daughter Hygeia, and Hippocrates, one of the founders of modern medicine. But what is their story? Why were they all taken down before WW2? When did they return? Is Asclepius really holding a baseball bat? Answers and more in Judy Langhorn’s Pump Room roofline statues.
*** *** ***
Mary Jane Briggs and Vallombrosa School
Mary Jane Briggs was the celebrated principal of Vallombrosa School in Pittville Circus Road. Her pupils knew her as the lady who had been shipwrecked off New Zealand and held captive by the Maoris, and who led war games on Battledown Hill. She was an early suffragist, arguing in 1867 that the word “man” should be replaced by “person” in the new Reform Bill. Mark Penfold tells her remarkable story in Mary Jane Briggs – Maker of Men.
*** *** ***
Pittville Education
When we came to transcribe details of the houses in Pittville Circus Road for our online database, we noticed that several of the large houses in Pittville Circus Road were used during the 19th century as schools. One house was even used as a convent, but that is another story. Mark Penfold took up the challenge of researching these educational establishments, and you can read the results of his detective work in Education in Pittville: Preparatory Schools in Pittville Circus Road.
*** *** ***
A zoo in Pittville
In the 1830s there was a danger that Cheltenham would boast two zoos, one in The Park and one in Pittville. In fact, the Pittville project never got beyond the drawing-board, and The Park proposal got little further. After the discovery of an illustrated plan of the Pittville zoo in the Gloucestershire Archives, Stuart Manton set to researching the story and uncovered a web of intrigue and bitter rivalry. Read his fascinating article, Cheltenham’s Zoo Wars, on the Pittville History Works site.
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Explore the site further by clicking on the tabs at the top of this page...
Welcome to the Works
Have you ever wondered about the people who lived in your house or your street in the past? Pittville History Works is a Friends of Pittville project which is making available the details of the people and places that have made up Pittville's history since the “big idea” of the Pittville estate emerged in the 1820s.
Pittville was the dream of Joseph Pitt (1759-1842), a Cheltenham lawyer and developer who planned to create an exclusive community just north of central Cheltenham. For Pitt the dream ended in financial disaster, but many of the houses he planned were eventually built, and today the Pittville area of Cheltenham thrives around the Regency elegance of the Pittville Pump Room and Pittville Park.
The Pittville History Works Group is part of the Friends of Pittville. We're collecting and transcribing information from 19th-century censuses, street directories and other sources to build up a picture of life in Pittville from Joseph Pitt's day to the present.
Pittville History Works News
If you'd like to receive our news updates sign up here.
A short history of Pittville
Take a brief tour of the Pittville Estate in the past (or try this new GPS-guided one). Click here to read an introductory account of Pittville's history, to access the large-scale map of Pittville 
which was part of the Cheltenham Old Town Survey of 1855-7, and to see a colourful gallery of images showing Pittville in days gone by and a page about Pittville residents commemorated by blue plaques.
Image: Richard Dighton "Three Gentlemen Greeting Each Other" (Wikicommons)
Social change in Pittville
Did most of the servants employed in Pittville come from Cheltenham, or were they born, for example, elsewhere in the West Country? Do the figures change as the 19th century progresses?
Were many of the “Heads of Household” in the 1881 census female? How did the residents live? What were their occupations? What was the typical household structure, and did it change over the years?
Try out these and many other searches online and read about the lives of the people who lived in Pittville (both upstairs and downstairs). There’s also an advanced search facility for more complex questions, and a timeline of events in the Pittville area over the last two centuries.
We launched this site with historical data relating to the 1,500 people who lived in Pittville Lawn from 1841 to 1901. It now contains information on over 14,000 people who lived in Pittville between 1824 and 1945. The site is updated regularly as more information becomes available.
Copyright © 2019 Friends of Pittville - Charity Commission Registration No. 1146790