IV.

Education and Culture

Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Further Education, founded in 1990 by the merger of the College of St Paul and St Mary with the Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology, became the University of Gloucestershire in 2001. It has three sites in Cheltenham and one in Gloucester. Cheltenham Ladies' College (founded 1853) is one of England's leading public schools for girls. Other leading schools include Rendcomb College (1920) and Hatherop Castle, a girls' boarding school. The Royal Agricultural College is near Cirencester.

The author Laurie Lee immortalized his Cotswold childhood in Cider with Rosie. The composer Gustav Theodore Holst was born in Cheltenham. The county has also produced three celebrated cricketers, Dr W. G. Grace, Walter Reginald “Wally” Hammond, and Robert (Jack) Russell. Sport plays an important role in the life of Gloucestershire. The Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of the biggest races of the National Hunt season, is held at Cheltenham racecourse every March. The Badminton Horse Trials are held at Badminton Park in May. Field sports and polo are traditional activities in the county. The headquarters of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is the County Ground in Bristol. Cheltenham Town FC, the county’s only professional football club, plays its home games at Whaddon Road.

Cheltenham is the venue for two annual festivals: the Music Festival, held in June/July, and the Festival of Literature, in the autumn. The choir of Gloucester Cathedral, together with those of Hereford and Worcester cathedrals, participates in the annual Three Choirs Festival, staged in turn in each of the three dioceses.

Gloucestershire is the home of one of the traditional English cheeses, the mild, orange-coloured single and double Gloucester. Cheese rolling competitions are held on Coopers Hill, Brockworth parish, in the spring. Mop fairs, which originated as hiring fairs for agricultural and domestic workers, still take place in October in Cirencester and Tewkesbury.