Swindon in the Past Lane

If you haven’t got around to visiting the Richard Jefferies Museum yet this spring, then Sunday June 2 is the perfect time to do so. Take a trip on the Coate Water Miniature Railway , making sure you alight at the Richard Jefferies Halt. Visit the museum, enjoy a walk around the grounds and partake of a cream tea in the Mulberry Tearoom, but make sure you are present for the unveiling of the Swindon Heritage blue plaque at 3 pm. This will be the 8 th Swindon Heritage blue plaque erected to mark significant people, places and events in the history of Swindon. The first was installed in May 2016 at 24 North Street, the birthplace of militant suffragette Edith New who campaigned for women’s suffrage alongside Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters and engaged in innovative and dangerous methods of protest. The second and third blue plaques were installed in a double event to honour the bravery of Squadron Leader Harold Morley Starr and his brother Wing Commander Norman J...

Yesterday evening I attended a very interesting meeting chaired by Robert Buckland MP for Swindon South. The purpose of the meeting was twofold – to discuss how to better protect and use buildings central to Swindon’s heritage and the subject of the new Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. Those present spoke with passion, although it has to be said, sometimes without good manners or respect for opposing views. The new museum and art gallery is planned for a large, empty site between the magistrate’s court and the Wyvern Theatre in Princes Street, the designated Cultural Quarter of the Council’s regenerated Town Centre.  Some felt it should be situated in the former Carriage Works on London Street. So that was the gist of the meeting … No one questioned that the town needs a new art gallery to better showcase the acclaimed modern art collection, acknowledged as the best outside London. No one doubted that the town needs a new museum to better tell the story of S...

In which Mr Huws tries valiantly to preserve my crumbling teeth.  A visit to the dentist and a lesson in dental history, which throws a light on my own predicament. The provision of dental care in the 19th century was definitely increasing. In 1887 the GWR Medical Fund set up a dental clinic with the appointment of a dental surgeon.  Four years later the expanding practice moved into consulting rooms in the new flagship building on Faringdon Road. Meanwhile residents of Old Swindon could call upon the services of visiting Bath dentist John Hay available every Monday 10-4 while Thomas Wrench (ouch) was practising in Bradbury, Chiseldon. Mr Huws tells how a high point for 20th century British teeth came during the second world war with the restricted consumption of sugar during food rationing.  Unfortunately for our molars once sugar made a come back our teeth went into decline and dental well being hit a low in the 60's.  Education, improved toothpastes and f...

Plans for the Medical Fund flagship building had been in the pipeline for a number of years.  The committee paid £999 for a plot of Rolleston estate land when it came on the market in 1885 but it was another six years before construction began. Built in 1891 and opened the following year, Milton Road Baths soon became the hub of the Medical Fund activities. With a grand, glass covered entrance in Faringdon Road, the red brick building was designed by Swindon architect J.J. Smith at a cost of £10,000. Keeping up with the times, the Medical Fund committee installed both Turkish and Russian baths.  The Turkish bath with dry air heated rooms, followed by a full body wash and massage was seen as being ‘of great value as a sanitary and cleansing agent.’  The Russian baths were a variation on this theme, a vapour bath created by the throwing of water on hot stones, followed by a massage that involved being hit with a besom made of birch twigs and leaves. ...