Festival celebrations took place in Cardiff, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath, Perth, Bournemouth, York, Aldeburgh, Inverness, Cheltenham, Oxford and elsewhere and there were touring exhibitions by land and sea.

As a result, every year Irish horse racing fans travel in huge numbers to the highlight event of the National Hunt calendar, the Cheltenham Festival, and in recent years Irish owned or bred horses have dominated the event.

This includes four of the five ' Classics ' of Flat racing: The Oaks and The Derby at Epsom Downs and the 2, 000 Guineas and the 1, 000 Guineas, and major National Hunt meetings include the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National at Aintree

Also located in County Kildare are two other courses, Punchestown Racecourse, home of the National Hunt Festival of Ireland, and Naas Racecourse, which runs both National Hunt and Flat meetings and is used by top race horse trainers as a test for horses preparing for the Cheltenham festival.

* Cheltenham Literature Festival, October 6-15

Despite claims of " dumbing down " from a group established customers on Betfair's forum, there was a significant increase in membership and deposits during the Cheltenham Festival.

At the Cheltenham Literary Festival on 17 October 2010, Lady Antonia announced that her next work would be on the subject of the Great Reform Bill 1832.

The 1999 Greenbelt Festival took place at Cheltenham but saw the lowest audiences since the 1970s.

* July 2 – July 14 – The seventh annual Cheltenham Music Festival is held in Cheltenham, England, with a performance of Brian Easdale's opera, The Sleeping Children, premieres of the first symphonies of Malcolm Arnold, John Gardner, and Arnold van Wyk, Franz Reizenstein's Serenade for Winds, and Maurice Jacobson's Symphonic Suite, as well as performances of works by Humphrey Searle, Robert Masters, Benjamin Frankel, and Philip Sainton.

This race and the meeting eventually developed into the Cheltenham Festival and the organisers were part of the founding of organised steeplechasing through the Grand National Hunt Committee

For example, a model might pose in a short white skirt with a tennis racquet during the Wimbledon tennis championships, or in jodhpurs with a riding crop during the Cheltenham Festival.

Nursery Rhymes, Cheltenham Literary Festival

The May Day weekend saw Lee curating a programme of free jazz at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, at the invitation of festival director Tony Dudley-Evans.

It received its premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival.

* Cheltenham Festival, Royal Ascot and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes

In UK it performs at Aldeburgh Festival, the City of London Festival and the Cheltenham Festival.

* Cheltenham Gold Cup, highlight of the Cheltenham Festival held on the last day ( the Friday )

This change has not applied in National Hunt racing, though amateur riders Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh ( sister of Ruby Walsh ) have gained success in Ireland and ridden winners at the Cheltenham Festival.

Kelly was born in County Kildare and achieved his first Cheltenham Festival success in March 2003 on Hardy Eustace in the Royal & SunAlliance Novices ' Hurdle.

* The inaugural Champion Hurdle is run as part of the Cheltenham Festival.

On 24 August 1856 Bessemer first described the process to a meeting of the British Association in Cheltenham which he titled " The Manufacture of Iron Without Fuel.

* George Brumell, British Post Office Numbers 1844-1906 ( Alcock, Cheltenham 1971 ).

British Rail closed the line between Stratford and Cheltenham Spa on the advice of Dr Beeching.

The Riverhead Centre development caused some controversy at the time as it followed the 1960s trend of replacing old architecture with new ; in this case it involved the wholesale demolition of much of the old town centre including the historic Bull Ring ( which is now where Wilkinson's, the Halifax Bank and the St James Hotel are based ) and streets going back many centuries including Flottergate ( located at the present day entrance to Freshney Place between British Home Stores and the market ), Brewery Street ( located at the present day entrance to Freshney Place between the branch of Barclays Bank and the offices of the Cheltenham and Gloucester ) and East St Mary's Gate ( no trace remains ).

In 2000 John left the Met Office to join commercial weather company British Weather Services, and continues to provide forecasts across a range of media outlets and sporting concerns including the Football Association, Twickenham and leading UK racecourses such as Newbury, Cheltenham, Haydock Park, Newmarket

Competing within the British Isles, he was first at Glasgow 1911, Cheltenham 1913, Chester 1914, Malvern 1921, Edinburgh 1926 and Tunbridge Wells 1927.

The film is set in a British independent school for boys in the late 1960s ( most of the scenes were filmed at Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, with the remainder at Uppingham School in Rutland and Aldenham School in Hertfordshire ).

In 1919, Room 40 was deactivated and its function merged with the British Army's intelligence unit MI1b to form the Government Code and Cypher School ( GCCS ), which was housed at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and subsequently renamed Government Communications Headquarters ( GCHQ ) and relocated to Cheltenham.

" The remaining two were moved to a British Intelligence department, GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where they may have played a significant part in the codebreaking operations of the Cold War ".

Bishop's Cleeve was once served by a railway line, a relative latecomer in British railway history, opened on 1 June 1906 by the Great Western Railway and running from Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham, part of a main line from Birmingham to the South West and South Wales.

This damaged the popularity of the Lake District as a tourist destination and led to the cancellation of that year's Cheltenham Festival as well as the British Rally Championship for the 2001 season.

It was common for visitors to carry the influence of the revival back to their home congregations – two notable British cases in point being Holy Trinity, Brompton and Holy Trinity, Cheltenham.

The names of these settlements — Essex, Bryn Mawr, Parkside, Cheltenham Beach, and Windsor Park — indicate the British heritage of the Illinois Central Railroad and steel mill workers who had come to inhabit them.

Broadway was once served by a railway line, a relative latecomer in British railway history, opened in the early 1900s by the Great Western Railway and running from Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham, part of a main line from Birmingham to the South West and South Wales.

William Philip (" Phil ") Cathcart Davies ( born 6 August 1928 ), played rugby union at centre for Evesham RUFC, Cheltenham RUFC, Cambridge University, Harlequins, England and the British Lions

* Eva Dobell ( 1867, Cheltenham 1963 ), a British poet, nurse, and editor

The British Isles mapping arm ( formerly Geographia Ltd .) was based in Cheltenham until that office was closed in 2009 and remaining staff made redundant in 2010.

It was opened by the B & GR on 24 June 1840 ; was renamed Cheltenham Spa ( Lansdown ) on 1 February 1925 by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and again renamed Cheltenham Spa by British Railways at some point after 1 January 1948.

Martin Charles Horwood ( born 12 October 1962, Cheltenham ) is a British Liberal Democrat politician.

Born in 1948 in Penang, Malaysia, Yeang attended Penang Free School and Cheltenham Boys College ( a British ' public school ' in Gloucestershire, UK ), obtained his first qualifications in architecture from the Architectural Association School ( London ), and received a PhD in ecological design and planning from Cambridge University's Department of Architecture for his dissertation, " A Theoretical Framework for Incorporating Ecological Considerations in the Design and Planning of the Built Environment ", published as Designing with Nature ( McGraw-Hill, 1995 ) that became the springboard for his pioneering work in ecodesign, green architecture and ecocity masterplanning.

In England in 1834, he married Elizabeth Emily, daughter of the British Deputy Secretary at War, William Merry ( 1762 – 1855 ) of Lansdowne Terrace, Cheltenham, by his wife Anne, daughter of Kender Mason of Beel House, Buckinghamshire, the sister of Henry Mason, who married a niece of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson.

In 1951, he received the Æ Memorial Award for Poetry in Ireland ; first prize, Guinness Awards, Cheltenham ( 1962 ); British Arts Council Awards ( 1967 and 1976 ); Marten Toonder Award ( 1980 ); Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature ( 1969 ); and American-Irish Foundation Award ( 1983 ).

By 1853, the school had grown to 195 pupils when it was presented with the King's Colour, one of only six schools and colleges ever to be so honoured in the British Empire, the others being Eton, Shrewsbury, Cheltenham, the Duke of York's Royal Military School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.