Swindon in the Past Lane

Fans of live music will be looking anxiously at popular venue The Vic as news broke this week that it is up for sale. Licensees David Young and Anna Spawson have decided to call it a day after eight successful and extremely busy years. The Old Town pub on the corner of Victoria Road and Union Row was built in 1845 and quickly proved popular with the punters.  In 1847 landlady Emma Pike was prosecuted for opening after hours at what was then a humble beerhouse. In 1867 the property was rebuilt and let to Oxfordshire brewer Clinch & Co of Witney on a yearly basis. By 1907 the pub was known as the Victoria Inn where Mark Applegate was behind the bar.  Later owned by Wadley Brothers of the Sun Brewery, Highworth the pub was acquired by Trowbridge brewers Ushers when they took over Wadleys in 1918. David and Anna told the Advertiser that business is booming, which is part of the problem.  After eight hectic years the couple are in need of a break, although David...

Devizes Road was a very different place by the beginning of the twentieth century, its hawthorn hedgerow long gone and the horse fair a thing of the past. With two breweries and sixteen pubs within staggering distance, Devizes Road probably wasn’t one of the quietest places in which to live. Built by James Howe in 1847, the pub on the corner of Britannia Place began life as a humble beerhouse.  In 1870 the Britannia, described as containing ‘Bar, Parlour, Taproom, Small Parlour and 4 bedrooms’ went on the market and was snapped up by Bowly’s, another local brewery.  Enlarged and refitted, the pub opened under new management and with a new name.  The Fountain was used as a dressing room by the Swindon Town Football Club and their opponents when the team played at the Croft before moving to the County Ground in 1896.  Renamed The Pig on the Hill, the former Fountain, reopened in the summer of 2010 under new management.   Newspaper proprietor...

The Locomotive might sound an obvious name for a pub in Swindon, but there have been surprisingly few.  With just one exception, even those pubs built alongside the company houses appear to have declined a railway associated name. The railway village pubs were all built in what was originally called High Street, a large grassed area enclosed by railings and later renamed Emlyn Square.  The Cricketers, the first fully licensed public house in New Swindon, opened in 1847 and took its name from its location near the GWR Cricket Field.  The Bakers Arms, on the corner of Bathampton Street, was originally owned by the GWR and served as both a beerhouse and a bakers.  The London Stout House, another GWR property, opened in about 1851 on the corner of Reading Street.  The name was later changed to the Glue Pot when it became the favourite watering hole of woodworkers employed in the carriage bodymaking and finishing shops.  The Engineers Arms, a relativ...

Ken White’s Golden Lion Bridge mural is a focal point in Swindon town centre, just as the bridge itself once was. Local artist Ken White first painted the mural on the side of a terraced house in Medgbury Road in 1976 as part of a job creation scheme for Thamesdown Arts.  Based on a 19 th century photograph, Ken added his own touch with representations of hammerman poet Alfred Williams and bridge builder Brunel.  Repainted in 1983, Ken spruced up the mural in 2009 and with the recent demolition of the Whalebridge Roundabout in Fleming Way it is once again on full view. The elaborate iron lift bridge depicted in the mural was built in the GWR works in 1870, replacing the original wooden swing bridge over the Wilts and Berks Canal.   Its neighbouring pedestrian footbridge, paid for by public subscription, was added in 1877. Once a farm track leading from Upper Eastcott, the main road through New Swindon, soon became known as Bridge Street whi...

This aerial shot of Swindon fifty years ago shows Headlands School which opened in 1952 as Headlands Grammar. In 1959 T.S. Magson was the Head Teacher. Part of the parish of Stratton St Margaret was added to Swindon by Local Government Board order number 25.937 on September 30, 1900.  What had once been a rural area on the outskirts of industrial Swindon would soon become engulfed by the encroaching town. The original Boundary Cottage stood on the Highworth and Swindon parish boundary.   It is said that the new Boundary House, built in 1894, was modelled on the owner’s home in Bayswater, but frustratingly little is known about the impressive four storey building that once dominated the former Kingsdown Road. During the early 20 th century Boundary House was occupied by the coach building King Brothers, Henry Charles and Joseph and their two families.   Listings in modern directories prove patchy but the Boundary House maintained its conn...

When the Sir Daniel Arms opened its doors in June 2007 it wasn't for the first time. A public house of the same name had stood in Fleet Street for around 140 years, which is somewhat surprising given a clause in the original deeds. Old Swindon brewer John Harding Sheppard made sure he protected his business interests when he sold land called 'Upper Ground or Fosters Upper Ground' in 1848. George Selby, a tea dealer from Eastcott, bought a piece of the land on 'the Highway called Fleet Way,' agreeing as part of the sale that he would not 'carry on or permit or suffer to be carried on ...the Trade or business of a Brewer, Publican, Beer House Keeper or Dealer in or retailer of beer or other Malt Liquor Wines or Spirits or any offensive Trade or calling whatsoever.' By 1851 George had opened a grocer's shop on the site but the property soon changed hands. In 1858 new owner William Henry Warner drew up a seven year lease with Charles Lea, a New Sw...

When pub landlady Lorna Sumbler, licensee at The Flag in 2008 caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure on the stairs, she knew immediately it wasn't a locked in customer - well not from this century anyway!  There had been other sightings too - a figure standing at the end of the bar that sat down - and then disappeared. She reported feeling a tap on the shoulder and seats moving, but there was never anyone there - or was there? John Knapp, one of James and Jane Knapp's seven children, was born in Shrivenham in 1849. Married to Mary Jane Hill in 1872, by 1881 the couple, with their four children Helen 8, William 6, Evelyn 4 and two year old John, were mine hosts at the Lamb and Flag in Bridge Street. In April of that same year John took Elizabeth Cavill to Swindon County Court for non-payment of £2 3s 6d, (£2.17 worth about £150 today) costs accrued by her husband George, The report in the Evening Advertiser reads: "Mr, Boddle appeared for the plaintiff and expla...