Landmark moment in Cheltenham's 200-year-old racing history as grandstand located - but original yet to be discovered

Archaeologists have made a major breakthrough in the search to find Cheltenham's first racecourse by locating foundations of the grandstand that was used nearly 200 years ago.

The findings are from the second grandstand used on Cleeve Hill, the old home of racing in the town before the switch to its current home in Prestbury Park in 1831.

They hope it can help their search for the original wooden grandstand, which was used for 11 years from 1818 before it was burnt down by followers of a local priest who called the sport evil.

Five years later, the second stone grandstand was built and was in use for eight years, before it was knocked down and the remains of it were discovered only in recent weeks.

The findings have shed new light on Cheltenham's racing history. The grandstand was believed to be around 60ft tall and could be seen from the town centre around four miles away. It featured a restaurant and coffee shop, with viewing facilities for male racegoers on the roof and women on the first floor. 

The track was shaped in a figure of eight, with the home straight estimated to be a mile long. The land is now open to the public and home to hundreds of sheep, but an information board is to be erected near the site of the stone grandstand.

Racing on Cleeve Hill attracted crowds of up to 50,000 but it lost popularity due to the difficulties in reaching the track from the town centre and was moved to Prestbury Park, which is overlooked by the hill.

Archaeologists hope to discover the original grandstand through magnetometry, a method using magnetic fields that can detect ground impacted by fire, and it would confirm the location of the original stand on the common.

Michael Milward, from local amateur group Gloucestershire Archaeology, is among those leading the search. The group plans to investigate again but a full excavation is unlikely due to costs.

Milward said: "Finding the grandstand is really good and it can tell us more about racing here. For us to be able to locate it means a lot. Now we've done it we can put a notice up to draw people's attention to it. 

"There's a little bit more we can do. If we found some evidence of where the wooden grandstand was burnt down, then that would be another big moment. 

"We were up here last week looking at a lot more squares but failing to find the burnt patch. It's worth having another crack at it."

Cleeve Hill still has a racing connection through Wickfield Stud, the yard of jumps trainer Emma-Jane Bishop.

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