TWIN TOWNS

Perched together on the western edge of the Cotswolds less than 10 miles apart, with populations that differ only by about 10,000 people, Cheltenham and Gloucester would be twin towns if it weren’t for the fact that Gloucester is actually granted city status thanks to its 1,300-year-old cathedral.

This makes it the considerably elder sibling, too; it was established as a Roman fortress around 68 AD. Positively youthful in comparison and a little further upstream, Cheltenham sprang (literally) to life in 1788 as a spa, and is now dubbed “Britain’s most complete Regency town”, though its roots are more humble and often traced back to a proliferation of pigeons, of all things.

The story goes that in 1716 a local farmer named William Mason purchased the once rural plot of land where Cheltenham Ladies College now stands, having noticed that pigeons were regularly flocking to the area to peck at salts