Holst Victorian House
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The Holst Victorian House is the birthplace of one of England’s greatest composers, Gustav Holst. It is a house ‘captured in time’ with authentic period lighting, furnishing, artwork and decorations, illustrating what life was like in a middle class Victorian home at the time of Holst’s birth in 1874, and is home to a number of manuscripts and important items such as the piano on which Holst composed his famous Planets suite.
Our mission is “To share the stories of the Holst Victorian House, a period home where composer Gustav Holst was born”. This mission supports our Charitable Objects, which are: The advancement of the education of the public by:
- The maintenance, promotion and continuing development of a museum and period house dedicated to Gustav Holst; and
- Encouraging the art of music.
Contact info
- 01242524846
- enquiries@holstvictorianhouse.org.uk
- Sabine Orton or Steve Leary
4 Clarence Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL52 2AY
Inclusion statement
We welcome everyone who is interested in music, particularly Gustav Holst’s, Victorian history, artwork and those wanting to just have some time out to expand their understanding of Holst’s life and works and Victorian day to day living. Our policy includes the statement “For anybody and everybody to feel welcome at the Holst Victorian House”.
The building is a grade 2 listed terraced house on four floors, and there are chairs on each landing, however we recognise that this may not therefore be accessible for some disabled visitors.
If you need us to work in a different way to enable you to take part, for example avoiding placing you in a busy environment or large group, please let us know before your visit and we can avoid times when we have a group visit or activity.
We are happy to talk with our visitors/participants about any specific requirements they may have and we will work hard to ensure you are able to enjoy your visit.
Car parking is a few minutes walk away, although visitors can be dropped off outside the door by parking temporarily on the pavement. We do not at this time have a disabled toilet but this is in our refurbishment plans.
In June 2024, we are planning to implement a ‘Turning The Pages’ facility that will enable visitors to scroll through the 15 autograph manuscripts (original scores) in our collection while listening to the music playing. This will be available not only to visitors to the museum but also online via our website to people unable to visit in person. We are also in discussions with Bloomberg about including Holst Victorian House on their Bloomberg Connects app in 2024. The app is designed with a variety of built-in accessibility features including voiceover, captions and audio transcripts, image zoom and font size adjustment. Finally, we are planning to extend the digitisation of our collections in 2025 to include circa 100 photos and 50 letters. Again, these objects will be accessible to people who are unable to visit Holst Victorian House in person.