PocketSights: Cheltenham in Antarctica Walk

Following on from the excellent talk in June by Anne Strathie about Herbert Ponting’s life and his photographs of Antarctica, we were invited to try out the self-guided walking tour called ‘Cheltenham in Antarctica’. It is available on the free PocketSights app that you can download to a smartphone or tablet. It is also part of David Elder’s book Cheltenham Heritage Walks which we already own but had not followed up as a whole walk.

If you live in Cheltenham, you are probably already familiar with the story of Scott’s last expedition to Antarctica and Edward Wilson’s part in it, and may also know the landmarks of his hometown well enough to feel there can be no surprises. We took both book and app with us on a warm summer’s day in early July. The Wilson is the starting point, and the 3-mile walk takes about 2 hours. We decided to park at the shops beside Waitrose where a 3-hour stay for free is allowed. That added half a mile to each end of the walk. You can also choose to view the app’s 15 points of interest at home without doing the walk.

Switching on the app outside the Wilson, we were surprised to find it insisting we had reached the end of the walk when pressing item 1. From the book, we could tell stop 2 should be at the Edward Wilson statue on the Promenade. However, looking at the app, the numbers at the various stops were going the opposite way. We decided to follow the app and do it backwards.

The map is easy to follow, and we went first to Cheltenham Minster (St Mary’s), then worked our way along the High Street out to London Road. Lloyd’s Bank is on the site of the old Assembly Rooms where talks about the expeditions were once given. We didn’t know that. We had to ignore the directions at the foot of each page on the app to proceed in the order of the numbers. You can skip a stop if you prefer not to do some of the little detours. There is plenty of information to read about each stop, available to see even if you don’t walk to that point.

Having the book in hand, we could see that the app contains much of the same information. However, the book does not include the many splendid photos of each site that the app shows you – apart from the Fortitude Window in the Chapel at Cheltenham College, in memory of Edward Wilson. Usually, there is no access for the public to the Chapel, but you can book to go on a visit to it and the college during the Heritage Open Days in the autumn.

Knowing Cheltenham, we felt that by going ‘backwards’ we were actually going to see the more famous parts of the town last. There were surprises – we paid more attention to particular buildings that we had no time for when driving through town or simply ignored through familiarity. We learned a lot more about Cheltenham’s connections with Antarctica. Walking to every point using the app was an enjoyable way to notice more about our own town and we would certainly use it to go on walks in places we don’t know. You are completely in charge of which way to walk and how much of the walk you want to do in one go – it is easy to pick it up again to do more on another day.

We arrived at Imperial Gardens in time for a welcome drink and rest at