Looking down on Stratton St Margaret

This aerial view of Swindon fifty years ago moves out of the town centre to Stratton St. Margaret. The photograph is dominated by the car body manufacturer, Pressed Steel factory, a new arrival in the late 1950s.

As jobs declined at the railway works, Swindon Corporation set about attracting new industry to the town.
Vickers-Armstrong at South Marston, Plessey Co and Marine Mountings at Wroughton were three wartime newcomers who stayed.

Pressed Steel relocated to Swindon from the company headquarters at Cowley in Oxford, and was one of the early arrivals on the Parsonage Farm Industrial Estate at Bridge End Road, overlooking the railway tracks.

Construction began on the plant in 1955 with production starting in 1956. During the 1960s Pressed Steel produced body parts for the Morris 1100, BMC sports cars and the Triumph 2000.

By the summer of 1965 the workforce numbered more than 6,600 with the factory occupying 1,750,000 square feet.

Also caught on camera at the top of the photograph, is the Dockle Farmhouse, today a popular family pub. Built on the site of a medieval farmstead, the Grade II listed building dates from about 1800.

Comments

My neck of the woods

Did you know that our neck of the woods was once just that - part of a wood, a very big wood? And not just any old wood but a Royal forest no less - Braydon Forest. The origins of Braydon Forest date back to the 9th century and a belt of woodland stretching from the Thame Valley to the Vale of Blackmore and known to the Saxons as Sealwudu. The Saxon lords were pretty easy going, it would appear, and then along came the Normans with their system of forest law, courts and officialdom. Braydon became a royal forest by 1135 and in the 13th century it contained an area of some 46 square miles. The forest bounds included not only woodland but fields of arable, meadow and pasture and even villages such as those of Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Millicent and Purton. In 1256, during the reign of Henry III the king gave Robert Tregoze 3 bucks and 8 does from Braydon to restock his park at Lydiard Tregoze and in 1270 John Tregoze obtained a royal licence to 'inclose and impark' his woo...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again … Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Actually, it was the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute Trust once based at No 1, Milton Road, Swindon, where Mark Sutton, Graham Carter and I first produced the blue print for the Swindon Heritage magazine in 2011. In my dream I was attending a shambolic meeting that roamed across the spacious office accommodation. There I met some of the key characters of this story, although not all of them. Paul Gregory, or was it Noel Beauchamp, it could have been either, Julie Carter and a hot dog vendor (so vivid was the illusion that when I awoke, I had the taste of onions in my mouth). Then there was an on-going, ambulatory talk about saving the Mechanics’ Institute reminiscent of the famous ‘Save the Clock Tower’ scene in the 80s film Back to the Future. This account is rather rambling, isn’t it, but isn’t that the nature of a dream – making perfect sense when you are in it and none at all when you wake up? ...

Edith New - Swindon Suffragette

In 1906 the suffragette campaign entered its most violent phase. Over 500 women had been imprisoned by 1909 and right up there among the militant activists was a Swindon schoolteacher. Edith Bessie New was born 17th March, 1877 at 24 North Street, Swindon, the fourth of Frederic and Isabelle New's five children. Frederic worked as a railway clerk at the GWR Works and Isabelle was a music teacher. An assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901, Edith subsequently left her Swindon home to teach in the deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. It was after hearing the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Trafalgar Square that Edith joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In February 1907 a deputation of suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in protest at the omission of votes for women from the King's speech. What had begun as a peaceful demonstration ended in a violent confrontation with police. Edith was among those arr...

Swindon in the Past Lane

Search This Blog