Gymnasium
The first recorded use of the swimming bath being boarded over in the winter months for use as a gymnasium is found in 1883 but it is clear that it had been taking place before this. An advertisement is found in the Gloucester Citizen that year for the Annual Assault At Arms & Gymnastic Display by The Gymnasium Club of the Montpellier Baths, Cheltenham to take place on 31 January ‘under distinguished patronage’. Performances were to be held at 3 pm and 8 pm (doors opening 30 minutes earlier) with reserved seats at 3s and second seats at 2s. General admission – presumably standing – was 1s. As an added bonus and to add to the occasion the Cheltenham Grand Military Band under the leadership of Mr F Gifford performed a choice selection of music at both performances.
The gymnasium became a permanent feature out of season and the equipment was often left in situ while the room was used to teach cycling. This led directly to the death of a young girl, Lillian Davies, in 1896.
Cycling
Just up the road from the Baths was Stretton’s Garage and Motor Works run by Edward Stretton who had became very successful in the early 1890s with his design for the Million bicycle which sold in very large numbers.
In 1902 to added a small motor to the frame to create the Millionmobile to which his patented trailing car could be attached to enable a passenger to be towed. The following year he produced a version of the Millionmobile that was rather like a reverse tricycle to which a forecar could be added, allowing someone to sit between the two front wheels, allowing three people to be ferried around town by one powered bicycle. Stretton also patented a design for a folding toothbrush.
Stretton offered cycling lessons – no doubt as a good way to promote and sell his machines – and as the weather in the winter was not always ideal for outdoor activity he would hire the swimming bath/gymnasium for the purpose. One assumes that the gym equipment was generally placed in the centre of the room giving space to cycle around it, rather like a velodrome (albeit on the flat). It was during one of his lessons in January 1896 that a young girl was killed while playing with the gymnasium equipment.
In later years Stretton moved into motor cars and the photograph below, sadly undated, shows the front of his business – which ran right through to the other side in Wellington Street. At the very extreme left of the image you can make out the tall chunky chimney of the Montpellier Baths.
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