Swindon in the Past Lane

The former Great Western Railway buildings in Swindon are rumoured to include a ghost or two, one of which apparently patrols the National Monuments Record building.  A model of Victorian efficiency, the Works complex contained a vast array of clocks and employed a clockwinder to maintain the various time pieces.  Legend has it that one such clockwinder climbed a spiral staircase in what was then a store room, to a door high in the eaves of the roof. From here he walked along one of the massive iron beams over which he threw a rope and hanged himself.   His ghost has been seen attempting to wind an absent clock in what has since been dubbed the haunted corridor and along which security guard dogs are reluctant to patrol. Today the imposing stone building overlooking the railway line accommodates the custodians of British history, but during the nineteenth century it accommodated the men who were actually making it. The GWR was very...

Today the infamous Magic Roundabout is probably one of the busiest junctions in Swindon. At the beginning of the 19th century a different method of transport stopped close by at the site of the Swindon wharf, although this traffic was considerably slower. In 1826 William Cobbett, 19th century radical politician, travelled through Swindon on one of his famous fact finding journeys across Britain. Surveying the Wilts and Berks Canal, Cobbett remarked on the 'gentleman's house, with coach house, stables, walled in garden, paddock, and the rest of those things, which, all together, make up a villa,' and supposed that the canal earned prodigious profits. In fact the canal was never particularly successful and was at its busiest, somewhat ironically, during the 1830s when it conveyed vast quantities of materials to build the Great Western Railway. The GWR itself once considered buying the canal for £20,000. In 1894 the United Commercial Syndicate was another possible ...