Swindon in the Past Lane

If you are dreaming of a White Christmas, spare a thought for the folk of 1881. In January 1881 Britain witnessed hitherto unparalleled weather conditions and The Times reported 'a walk across London suddenly assumed the dimensions of an Alpine adventure.' After several days of intense cold and black frost, blizzard conditions swept across southern regions of the country during the evening of Monday January 18. The storm raged for thirty six hours, at the end of which the death toll numbered twenty people within a 20 mile radius of Swindon. One casualty was George Cook, a farm labourer at Walcot Farm. George had brought a consignment of milk from the farm for despatch from Swindon junction. Returning home via Old Swindon, he stopped off to collect medicine for one of his children who was unwell. Travelling down the precipitous hill on Cricklade Street, George passed Christ Church where he suddenly plummeted into a snowdrift and became trapped. Fortunately residen...

Nicki Western, Marketing, Events and Premises Manager at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, arrived at the Swindon Heritage History Day weighed down with some extremely heavy bags. Among the museum artefacts she had brought with her was a selection of the ever popular Alfred Beaney photographs. Here's a blogpost I published in December 2012 about the Beaney archive. Swindon Museum and Art Gallery has possibly the largest family album ever - and they want to know the names of everyone pictured in it. The albums contain 40,000 photographs taken in the 1940s-70s by local man Albert Beaney.  Alongside his commissioned work Albert would travel the streets of Swindon on his motorbike, taking photographs of the children at play.  He would then return with his prints in the hope of selling them to the childrens' parents. Consequently only addresses and street names were recorded in his notebooks - the names of those pictured remain unknown. In 1998 the collection, a priceles...

Major Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard's dying request was that his funeral service be as simple as possible and that he wished to be buried in a "plain elm coffin made from timber grown on my estate." The last Lord of the Manor to live at The Lawn, Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard died at the family home on Friday August 12th 1927 and less than three weeks later Fielder and Tuckett, a firm of auctioneers, valuers and surveyors, were called in to catalogue the family treasures. An Inventory of Plate, Pictures, Busts, Statutes, Books and Jewellery fills several typewritten sheets of paper, recording items of both financial and sentimental value.  Items were listed under headings of the rooms where they were observed, for example the Dining Room, the Lobby to Drawing Room, the Blue Room and the Rose Room along with the Gun Room and the Billiard Room. Pages and pages of books are recorded not just from the library but all over the house. An eclectic selection of titles such as Wi...

National Libraries Day celebrations didn't end on Saturday.  Well not at Penhill Library they didn't where youngsters got down and sticky making musical instruments. With glitter as far as the eye could see and more lentils then you could shake a stick at, the children transformed the humble Pringle pot into a shaker ahead of yet another fun day on Friday. Neil Mercer will be joining the budding musicians at Penhill 11-12 on Friday for a nursery rhyme mash up. Don't be put off if you missed out on making a shaker, there are plenty of instruments to go around.

To the inexperienced eye the barn at Great Coxwell might appear big, but apparently as monastic barns go, it’s a bit on the small side.  Measuring 152 feet and 7 bays long, records reveal examples of others double that length. Situated along the Hollow Road, the medieval barn formed part of the monastic farm or grange belonging to Beaulieu Abbey.  Built in around 1300 the Cotswold rubble-stone walled barn with purlin roof is today admired for its architectural features.  But those medieval builders knew a thing or two about efficiency and everything was designed to make life just a little easier for both builders and the over worked agricultural labourer. The canny 14 th century architects sited the barn on a natural stony outcrop thereby avoiding the need to dig foundations and prolong building work.  The barn itself was constructed by a team of masons and carpenters.  The square holes in the walls, ‘putlog holes,’ supported the builders s...

Work continues apace on Princes Street at the Union Square development despite the recent snow and rain. Have a look how things are progressing and catch up on the history of Princes Street  on a previous Swindon in the Past Lane post. The Man with a Stick outside 19 Princes Street in 1953.  For the legendary MWAS series see  Swindon Local Studies  and for the whole story visit Swindon Heritage.