Swindon in the Past Lane

In 1966 Wiltshire County Planning Department conducted a survey of rural settlements in the Swindon countryside.  The area of Shaw and Washpool had one general store, a pub and a doctor's surgery.  There was a daily bus service into Swindon, roughly 5 miles away, and the settlement was on mains water and electricity, but had no gas.  The council had granted planning permission for two dwellings, which would increase the population by approximately six people. In the 1970s boundary changes extended the Swindon western limits to include the surrounding farmland up as far as Lydiard Park and the villages of Shaw and Nine Elms.  Factories, schools, shopping centres and thousands of homes were planned for this rural backwater. Shaw resident Mr Bill Selby 75, whose family history in the village stretched back 300 years, was pictured leaning on the village sign. "I think I shall buy a caravan and move away," he told the local press.  "All the green fields wh...

School logbooks are a valuable source of local knowledge, providing a snap shot of a locality and even the name of a young ancestor - especially if they were naughty! Built in 1841 on land provided by Rev. Henry Streeten, 'adjacent to the Butts' the school in Lydiard Millicent opened in 1842. The logbooks held at the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives date from 1870 and the appointment of Miss Hannah Shore. Despite all efforts to get them into school, hard-pressed rural families often kept children at home. Boys were put to work on local farms during busy times and education versus a few coins towards the family income was always a hard fought battle. Hannah Shore writes on June 30, 1871 - 'Many of the children away on account of the haymaking.' From 1880 education became compulsory for children up to the age of 10, yet in 1891 schoolmaster Francis Drew was to write in the Lydiard Millicent school logbook - 'Lucy Leonard who has been absent 158 times during t...