Swindon in the Past Lane

Our regular guided cemetery walk takes place today, Sunday June 12 meet at Radnor Street Cemetery for 2 pm. It looks like the weather might be a bit unpredictable, but don't let that put you off - the cemetery is a beautiful place in all seasons. This week I met up with two ladies researching their Alley family ancestors. Wendy is no stranger to Swindon having grown up here, but Di had made the journey from Australia after discovering some shocking news a couple of years ago. Read more in the Autumn edition of Swindon Heritag e. There are more than 100 Commonwealth War Graves in Radnor Street Cemetery published courtesy of Andy Preston published courtesy of Andy Preston Wendy and Di 

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has recently erected new signage at Radnor Street Cemetery where work continues apace to commemorate the centenary of the Great War. The Community Payback Team is doing a marvelous job clearing overgrown areas and revealing gravestones long hidden while in the chapel boarded up windows have been replaced with Perspex. Unfortunately work on a small damaged area of the roof, promised by Swindon Borough Council some months ago, has still to be completed. The Swindon in the Great War team will begin guided tours of the cemetery next month with local military historian Mark Sutton talking about Swindon men who fought and fell while I will be looking at some of the other memorials and the stories behind the families. In August local historical societies will come together in to produce an exhibition in the cemetery chapel. Dates for your diary: Thursday, May 22 - An Evening Walk through Radnor Street Cemetery - 6.30 pm.  Saturday June...

You might think that a young unmarried, childless soldier who died in the carnage of the First World War might be forgotten today.  But more than 95 years later photos of Archie Knee have been published on the internet. In Australia a descendant of his sister Ethel has posted a photo of the young Archie on the Ancestry website. The Local Studies Collection at Swindon Central Library has a further two photos viewable on their flickr website.  Archie appears in a team line up of the 1912-13 Swindon Corinthians Football Club.  More poignantly he is also pictured in the September 1916 edition of the Great Western Railway Magazine among other GWR men who lost their lives in the war that month. Born in Stroud in 1892 Archibald Edward Knee was one of Francis and Rose Knee's eight children.  Francis moved to Swindon and a job as a railway carriage painter in the Works and by the time of the 1901 census the young family was living at 123 Albion Street. On leaving s...