Published on 11th January 2011

Historic photograph of St George's road showing the Ladies College and Royal Well Chapel. Taken around 1905. One of the Kingsway Real Photo series.

For over 150 years, retailers in these three areas of Cheltenham’s ‘South Town’ have developed particularly distinctive characters with a strong flavour of being small, independently owned businesses.

The community initiative Cheltenham Connect has recently been working with a team of local historians to research the history of all the shops in the local area. This material has been collated onto the newly launched website www.cheltenhamsouthtown.org and is accessible to the whole community.

The community, and especially local traders who have owned or managed these shops for a considerable period of time, are being asked to help with checking the website's details and adding anything that they may know about the sites, as part of a 'Local Memories' link.

The group has already heard from two local residents whose families ran shops in the area for many years and their very personal memories, photos and records are now recorded onto the website.

In association with the local St Philips and St James Area Residents Association (SPJARA) the group has also developed a South Cheltenham Walking trail leaflet that can be downloaded free from the site. They are also planning to run guided tours of South Cheltenham during 2011.

If you do have any memories, stories or photographs to tell about the shops in the South Cheltenham area, you can share your memories via the online contact form on the website or by ringing Cheltenham Connect on (01242) 243763.