Swindon in the Past Lane

At the turn of the second millennium the future was looking bleak for the abandoned Groundwell Farmhouse.  Left to stand empty for several years, it looked as if time was up for the Grade II listed building, which had once served as both farmhouse and arts centre. Elements of the coursed rubble stone house date from 1660 and during a survey made by the Wiltshire Buildings Record in the 1980s a 17 th  century fireplace was still in situ in the west bedroom.  The building was then described as typical of a late 16 th  or early 17 th  century Wiltshire Manor House.  But records for the Groundwell estate go back much further.  This des res was already on the up and up in 1086, appreciating from 40s to 70s at the time of the Domesday survey where it was recorded that ‘Hugh and Girald hold Grendewell from Humphrey.  Ordulf held it before 1066.’  However, even earlier than this, the Romans had appreciated the sheltered aspect of Go...

Was Richard Woolford motivated by criminal intent or poverty when he picked up his gun and headed off for Lord Bolingbroke’s land one winter’s night in 1834? Records show that Richard was charged with ‘having in the night together with a great number of other persons armed with guns, and other unlawful weapons entered a certain coppice belonging to the right honourable Lord Viscount Bolingbroke for the purpose of destroying game at Lydiard Tregoze.’ At the time of Richard’s arrest, Robert Hiscocks was the gamekeeper at the Lydiard Park estate, a position subsequently filled by his son Harry who worked alongside him in the second half of the 19 th  century.  Sporting rights across the estate were protected in the farm leases and the duties of the Lydiard Park gamekeeper included the rearing of his lordships pheasants.   Victorian gamekeepers were known to shoot at anything that threatened the birds under their protection. Richard, a 21 year old labourer ...

Last year an exhibition of Ken White’s work opened at The Post Modern, Theatre Square, Swindon to celebrate the artists' 70th birthday. In the 1980s Swindon boasted a fine collection of Ken's murals - one at Cambria Bridge, the famous ‘Swindon Personalities’ in Union Street/Prospect Place, the King Class Locomotive Passing Through Swindon Railway Works at Henry Street, to name just a few. Sadly today just one mural now remains - the Golden Lion Bridge looking down Fleming Way. And even more disgraceful is the fact that Swindon does not own a piece of Ken White’s art.  Now how on earth can that be? In 2003 Advertiser journalist Shirley Mathias was asking exactly that question. Shirley wrote: ‘But the closest Ken has come to recognition by the borough was an invitation to hang two works in a display which is part of Think Art, an event sponsored by the borough’s Swindon Arts project together with, among other supporters, Nationwide, Westfield who own the Br...

The 20th Swindon Festival of Literature was well and truly launched today at The Old Reference Library, Swindon with masterful words, music and just a little mayhem. The Swindon Festival of Literature was homegrown at Lower Shaw Farm in 1993 in collaboration with Book Auctioneer Dominic Winter and today remains a Swindon based enterprise with local designers, printers and organisers.  Festival guru Matt Holland looked back over a score of literature festivals with pride, affection and a rhyming couplet before embarking upon a Think Slam!  challenge  with Sara-Jane Arbury. Matt touted for support with the promise of complimentary tickets but Sara-Jane won by 253 points to 235 as she questioned the need to wear clothes and declared 'body freedom's no crime.' Next came Linda Lee, choir mistress extraordinaire, founder of the Swindon Scratch Choir, and Lower Shaw Farm volunteer Kelly, who sang The Wandering Aengus by W.B. Yeats. Rod Bluh, long serving Leader of Swi...

Jean and Tuc surrounded by young members of their family   August 31st Wind still in the right quarter and blowing fresh. Passed Madeira today leaving it about 120 miles to the eastward. The weather is beginning to feel hotter every day and one or two of the 2nd cabin passengers have taken to sleeping out on the deck. It is generally predicted that we are in for a 4 months voyage at least. I most decidedly hope not, seeing that we are beginning to long for land already. Progress 175. The Rev Henry Tuckey and his young bride Frances had been on board the SS Ashburton barely three weeks when he made this entry in his diary. Unfortunately Henry's fears were confirmed with the passage from Gravesend to Nelson, New Zealand taking a total of 109 days in 1859. Henry led an eventful life, serving as parish priest, sheep farmer and classics master, but it was his Wiltshire roots that found Jean Tuckey undertaking some long distance rummaging about in Rodbourne Cheney parish register...

If an Englishman's home is his castle, what message is conveyed by these front doors on Bath Road? Pull up the drawbridge or welcome - step inside and stay awhile, let me take your coat and sit by the fire, I'll put the kettle on. Building on Bath Road took off in around 1830 when property such as the elegant Apsley House was built for Charles Axford  Fox.  The development rapidly became an area for wealthy inhabitants of the genteel Old Town in contrast to the industrial clamour for housing at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps a candle lit chandelier once hung behind the fanlight at Fairview where James Fearnley Carlyle, a civil engineer, lived with his wife and three young children in 1881.  Whose task would it have been to sweep away that carpet of golden autumn leaves I wonder?  Not Miss Adkins the governess, nor Emma Augore the cook; another job for housemaid Florence Tonkin maybe. At number 33 Alice Deacon and her daughter Mary had thei...

Swindon Central Library celebrated International Women's Day with poetry, dancing and art in a day packed full of activities. In the morning Bea Menier shared her colourful journals and showed us how to make every day count in her Creative Journaling workshop while  Juliet Platt  introduced us to reflective journaling in her afternoon workshop. Other contributors included  Hilda Sheehan , writer, performer and arts events organiser, who read from her newly published book The Night My Sister Went to Hollywood and encouraged members of the audience to read some of their favourite poems. Dance teacher and director of Bollywood Dreamers Dorothy Clarke talked about her work in Swindon's twin town of Ocotal and gave a demonstration of a dance she taught on a visit to the Nicaraguan capital. The International Women's Day extravaganza was the inspiration of historian, writer and campaigner for women's education and empowerment Rosa Matheson. In 2011 Rosa published ...