Swindon in the Past Lane

Formed when the wartime National Fire Service was denationalised, 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Wiltshire Fire Brigade. Today the county fire service has around 600 fire fighters on roll, a far cry from when a Volunteer Brigade was formed in Swindon in 1879. With William E. Morris, son of the Swindon Advertiser founder, as Captain, A.H. Meadows Deputy Captain and William Affleck, engineer, the total force numbered just 14. In 1864 Old Swindon's horse drawn Shand Mason manual pump was housed in Newport Street. Keys to the building were kept at the police station with another set at the Wood Street home of Swindon surveyor William Read. Meanwhile in New Swindon the GWR Company made their steam pump, used in the works, available for any incidents in the railway village. However by the 1870s with the old fire engine in a poor state of repair, fire fighting provisions were woefully inadequate. A proposal to institute a fire fighting force was made at a meeting of ...

  When brick and tile manufacturer Thomas Turner wanted to advertise his wares he certainly thought of an eye-catching method. In 1889 he built two properties known as the 'catalogue houses.' The two cottages along with Jessamine Cottage, were 19th century show homes, built to display every brick and tile, every finial and moulding, made in Turner's works. The properties were constructed at the front of his manufacturing site in Drove Road, one of around nine brick works operating in boomtown Swindon in the late 19th century. Topped off with terracotta acorns, crests and rosettes and even a pottery portrait, said to be that of Daniel Lynch, master potter at the Stratton works, they are unique examples of Turner's expertise. Turner's own home, Grove House, a substantial Victorian villa stood slightly removed from his worker's houses, perhaps better known today as the Miller & Carter Steakhouse, Drove Road. Thomas was the son of another potter a...