Swindon in the Past Lane

Today you will be unlikely to hear the thwack of leather on willow in Faringdon Road Park where in 1844 the GWR bought a parcel of land west of the Railway Village, owned by Lt. Col Vilett. In the early days the Cricket Ground was surrounded by a hedge and wooden palings and the GWR frequently had to issue warnings when their property was vandalised. A notice published in June 1860 by Works Manager William Gooch announced – “I have again to caution, and call the attention of the Workmen to the damage done in the village by their Children, such as destroying trees in the Cricket Ground.” Families faced severe penalties if their children were found to be the culprits. Gooch warned that the guilty boys "will not in future at any time be employed in the Works." If the offences were repeated the men risked losing not only their job but their home as well. The GWR Cricket club, formed in 1847, shared the Cricket Field with teams representing other Shops in the railwa...

Today it is difficult to picture the former GWR Park on Faringdon Road without it's splendid railings, yet it is a mere four years ago since the installation of the new ironmongering. A £200,000 developer funded project was announced in March 2009 and the final section along Church Place was finished in the summer of 2010. The park project generated an interest in the distinctive Victorian blue brick capping on the walls stamped with the imprint Joseph Hamblet from West Bromwich and canal historian Janet Flanagan contacted me about a former boatman Bill Cutler. Bill was born in 1895, a third generation boatman, and in 1969 the Advertiser interviewed him. He told of working on his father's two horse-drawn narrow boats called Lea and Rea, bringing bricks and brewery sugar from his native West Bromwich to Swindon. "It was a lovely life," he told the Advertiser. "Peaceful, yet you were doing some hard work." The Cutler Family connections in the Mi...

A Bonfire Night prank led to a tragic accident and swift action from the Great Western Railway's company doctor. George Money Swinhoe had been in the job just 12 days when he was called out to the market hall adjoining the Mechanics' Intuition on the evening of November 5, 1859. A group of enterprising boys had constructed “a cannon loaded with fireworks” which they had set off in the market to give the stall holders a fright. However, the high jinks turned to tragedy when a nine year old girl suffered such severe leg injuries that Dr Swinhoe had to amputate the limb on the scene. Park House, a spacious yellow brick residence overlooking the GWR Park, was built for the railway company doctor in 1876. However, in the early days of the company’s presence in Swindon the medical officer’s situation was far more precarious. In 1846 medic Stuart Keith Rea was the doctor most frequently called to accidents at the works.  His terms and conditions of emplo...

Built in 1862 as a drill hall and armoury for the XI Wiltshire Volunteer Rifle Corps, the cottage hospital building in Swindon’s railway village began life designed for a completely different purpose. However, by the end of the 1860s the pressing need in the railway community was for a hospital.  The armoury was selected as being suitable for conversion and new premises was built for the Rifle Corps in the GWR Park. Accidents in the GWR Works were an everyday occurrence.  A gravestone in St. Mark’s churchyard records the death of 19 year old Frederick James Tucker ‘killed by burst boiler at Swindon works’ on June 18, 1855. A decade later and safety precautions had improved little.  Robert Hanks, 71, a fitter at the works, was crushed to death when a truck he was working under collapsed on top of him. Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Superintendent Joseph Armstrong proposed that the GWR Company pay for the conversion of the armoury property and that additional costs be me...