I50 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1913 



This combination of circumstances no doubt leads to the 

 comparatively moist, quiet and lifeless atmosphere so well 

 known to the inhabitants of Cheltenham as a matter of ex- 

 perience. When the conditions are at their maximum and the 

 weather is warm, the result is sedative, or at least unstimulating, 

 and occasionally a little stuffy in the central districts, so that 

 a difference is noticed in moving into the suburbs or sur- 

 rounding open country, particularly in the direction of the 

 hill slopes, where a quite bracing air is soon reached. Thus, 

 whilst this quiet unstimulating and unirritating kind of cli- 

 mate suits some people and some conditions of body remark- 

 ably well, a more stimulating and ozonic air is obtainable as 

 the result of no great amount of effort or exercise. 



Frost and fog are modified here. As compared with many 

 inland towns, the buildings of Cheltenham become but little 

 weather stained. This result may be partly due to the 

 relatively clean condition of the atmosphere, on account of there 

 being no factory chimneys worth mention, and partly to the 

 fact that we do not get that dense and often sudden fine 

 precipitation that results in the smoky fog, which is not 

 infrequently brought to pass by a cold wind setting slightly 

 from that quarter from which the wind rarely sets in Chelten- 

 ham — the East. Snow is of infrequent occurrence in Winter, 

 and it will often lie upon the Eastern side of the Cotteswold 

 hill-line when it fails to lie at Cheltenham and in the neigh- 

 bouring Severn Vale. 



In the search for a settlement for agricultural and pastoral 

 pursuits the settlers are not bound as in the case of some 

 mercantile adventure or manufactory, where the convenience 

 of carriage by land and water, and the near presence of neces- 

 sary materials dictates the site of the embryo city. And the 

 origin of Cheltenham being after the former rather than the 

 latter sort, we find this town occupying a situation well chosen 

 from the point of view of health and pleasant surroundings. 

 There was the combe running back into the hills along with 

 the stream we call the Chelt, and there was that stream coming 

 down the centre of its own pretty valley, whose retiring hill 

 slopes open gradually to the greater Severn Vale. This was an 



