Devizes Road was a very different place by the beginning of the twentieth century, its hawthorn hedgerow long gone and the horse fair a thing of the past. With two breweries and sixteen pubs within staggering distance, Devizes Road probably wasn’t one of the quietest places in which to live. Built by James Howe in 1847, the pub on the corner of Britannia Place began life as a humble beerhouse. In 1870 the Britannia, described as containing ‘Bar, Parlour, Taproom, Small Parlour and 4 bedrooms’ went on the market and was snapped up by Bowly’s, another local brewery. Enlarged and refitted, the pub opened under new management and with a new name. The Fountain was used as a dressing room by the Swindon Town Football Club and their opponents when the team played at the Croft before moving to the County Ground in 1896. Renamed The Pig on the Hill, the former Fountain, reopened in the summer of 2010 under new management. Newspaper proprietor...