Cheltenham Minster, St Mary's Parish Church

Emily Bowers, mother of Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers who was one of Scott’s five-man team that reached the South Pole in January 1912, was born in Cheltenham and was christened in this church - the only surviving medieval building in Cheltenham.

Later, she attended the pioneering teacher training college (now part of the University of Gloucestershire) founded by the Revd Francis Close who was the perpetual curate here for thirty years. Emily's father, who ran a tailor’s business, was one of the parishioners who signed a farewell scroll of thanks to Close when he left Cheltenham in 1856 to become Dean of Carlisle.

Emily left Cheltenham at the age of twenty, initially to become a teacher in a Sidmouth church school and, later, to become a missionary teacher in present-day Malaysia, where she met Henry’s father, a sea captain.

Their son, whom Scott described as ‘a marvel’, became one of Wilson’s closest friends. Their camaraderie was cemented during the remarkable expedition led by Wilson in June 1911 to collect emperor penguin eggs for scientific study during the middle of the Antarctic winter, later immortalised by Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s account in The Worst Journey in the World (1922).

Continue straight past the Minster and along Well Walk and turn right to rejoin Clarence Street and return to your starting point at The Wilson.