[1] During the early 19th century, Cheltenham became fashionable as a spa, and the population grew, with many elderly and ailing people taking up residence there.

In 1857 the Improvement Commissioners for Cheltenham set out to use the Burial Acts to provide a large new cemetery.

They established a Burial Board, and this looked for an area of land of between twelve and twenty acres (c 5–8ha) within two miles of Cheltenham.

In due course this was won by the architect W. H. Knight of Cheltenham, who proposed two Gothic chapels, joined by a porte-cochère, with a spire above it.

[1] In 1938, a crematorium was built near the south chapel, at a time when there were only a few dozen in Great Britain.