The mystery of just where Sheppard's Mansion House stood is solved in the recollections of Richard James Tarrant written shortly before his death in 1926 aged 85. Tarrant, a former boot and shoe maker, had once lived at 9, Wood Street, Old Swindon. "I knew John Harding Sheppard, brewer and malster," he wrote. "He built Bowlys brewery and lived in the house opposite the Square, where Kinneirs had their offices, now turned into a garage, Skurrays." Today the foundations of this building lie beneath the Co-operative store on the corner of High Street and Newport Street. Sheppard's extensive Kingshill estate caused quite a stir when it went under the hammer in September 1870. "The sale occupied several hours, and presented a scene but seldom witnessed on such occasions. The preliminary wrangle over the conditions and particulars occupied from two to three hours," reported the Swindon Advertiser. With the population of both New and Ol...