Swindon in the Past Lane

In 1966 the local authority purchased the railway village cottages from British Rail. The properties were in a state of disrepair and in a flashback to Victorian times were found to be insanitary and not up to modern expectations. Most of the cottages lacked indoor toilets and bathrooms and the rear extensions were dilapidated and infested with vermin. For some considerable time the fate of the cottages hung in the balance while residents led a crusade to save these historic properties. Eventually Thamesdown Council began a long running refurbishment programme, completed in the 1980s. Today the stone built former railway workers homes are central to the town's Railway Village Conservation Area designated in 1975. The 300 Grade II listed cottages constitute an almost complete planned railway settlement of the 1840s and 50s.  In 2016 the  Railway Village Museum was transferred from Swindon Borough Council to the Mechanics' Institution Trust and it is now open on selected wee...

Far be it from me to question the great Richard Jefferies – but I wonder where he got his story from. In 1896 the posthumously published Jefferies Land included a short history of Lydiard Tregoze and the Lydiard Park estate. ‘Lydiard and the neighbourhood are remarkably well wooded. Oak is abundant though it is observed that the trees never reach that enormous size which astonishes one in other localities. There is a curious legend about these oak trees. Ages ago a member of the Bolingbroke family rendered some important service to an English monarch. In return he received a grant of the lands of Lydiard until he should have taken three crops off them, after which they were to revert to the Crown. The wily nobleman had the lands sown with acorns and hazel nuts, which shot up into oaks and hazel woods, and the Bolingbrokes have not cleared their first crop yet. Such is the story.’ Jefferies Land - A History of Swindon and its Environs By the late Richard Jefferies Publ...