LECTURES. 53 



to meet their needs they went on to Norton, where they obtained 

 sufficient refreshn:ient. 



With the decay of the tobacco plantationing Cheltenham seemed 

 to have lost all possible means of prosperity, but one was discovered 

 shortly which was to eclipse all that had gone before, and the bene- 

 factors in this case were to be pigeons. You may have noticed them 

 in the Town Arms. They were the discoverers of the mineral waters 

 which made Cheltenham so prosperous in the last century. In the 

 year 1715 it was noticed that pigeons frequented a certain field on 

 Bays Hill where they picked up a salt sediment left by a spring; it 

 had been remarked that this spring did not freeze with other springs 

 in winter. A roof was put over the spring and its waters subjected 

 to medical analysis, and in 1738 Captain Skillicorne built a Dome 

 over it and founded the original Pump-room ; five years later Old 

 Well Walk was planted with its fine rows of elms. The name is still 

 applied to the lane that issues from the Churchyard, but the real Well 

 Walk went up the slope of Bayshill. You can still see a trace of it 

 here and there ; a few trees stand between Fauconberg Terrace and 

 the Ladies' College and a few more in the gardens of Glenlee, but 

 the Walk was destroyed some years back and the Ladies' College 

 stands on its site. It is to be hoped that Lord Northwick's poplars 

 may never receive the fate at our hands that has been meted out to 

 the elms by the sister institution. 



But the greatness of Cheltenham did not come all at once ; during 

 the bulk of the i8th century it was a struggling, straggling village, 

 consisting only of one street, the High Street from the Plough to the 

 Fleece, while a stream till 1786 flowed down the middle only to be 

 crossed by stepping stones ; you may still find houses in the High 

 Street that date from that period. It was still remote and sleepy enough 

 in 1738, the Gloucester Journal announced that "if God permitted, 

 the Gloucester Flying Machine (not a motor-car but a stage-coach) 

 would perform the journey to London in the short space of 3 days." 

 But this was daring providence, and we find a notice of one Dormer, 

 a suggestively sleepy name, who being about to journey to London, 

 felt it necessary, considering that it was uncertain whether he should 

 hve to return, to make his last will and testament. One gentleman 

 visiting Cheltenham in 1736 found it impossible to obtain a night's 

 lodging there, so that he had to proceed to Gloucester, the coach from 

 thence being fetched for him. 



But an event occurred which put the prosperity of Cheltenham on 

 a sure basis from which it has never been shaken. In 1788 George 



