Swindon in the Past Lane

Helen Shapiro knew a thing or two about walking. Today I joined Andy Binks from the Swindon Society as he led a group from the Swindon Health Walks on a guided tour of the Railway Village. The Walking for Health initiative aims to improve your general well being; help reduce your risk of developing serious health conditions; lift your mood and introduce you to new people. Andy and I had a great time and here are the photographs to prove it. Andy assembles the troops Walking along the backsies - or what do you call them? In Reading Street Andy tells the story of a serious case of overcrowding The Mechanics' Institute Bristol Street St Mark's Church The GWR Park Park House Taunton Street and the home of Jim Hurst, king of all engine drivers the old Medical Fund Hospital Milton Road Baths and the Medical Fund Hospital provided a blue print for Aneurin Bevan's National Health Serv...

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...

Our second edition of Swindon Heritage is with the printers as I write and will be dropping through your letterboxes by the end of next week - that is if you are one of our fast growing list of subscribers. You can also buy it at various Swindon outlets (for list see below) but if you're wondering why you can't find a copy in the WH Smith Regent Street store read  Mums in Media. Readers thought our first edition was pretty impressive, but we think you'll find this one even more so. With a stunning photo of Diana Dors on the cover, our Summer edition has a swell 84 pages. Nearly ninety year old former drummer Bart Hathaway shares his memories of the dance band era when the Johnnie Stiles award winning band delighted Swindon audiences. And still on a show biz theme Mark Child looks at the history of the Empire Theatre, the subject of his latest book All for the Empire, co authored with retired librarian Roger Trayhurn. But we're not all glitz and glitter and if fo...

Members of the Swindon Society are now on their summer break, so I thought it was time to publish a couple of blogposts about the work they get up to. Scroll down to see what's on when the group reconvenes in September. This week saw members of the Swindon Society take to the streets as the local history enthusiasts joined in with Lethbridge Primary School's Victorian project. The eight and nine year olds had already seen a slideshow of Old Swindon and learned what it was like to be a Victorian schoolchild - now it was time to walk in the footsteps of their 19th century counterparts. The 140 children took part in four guided walks across two wet and windy days at the beginning of the week. First stop was at the site of the Old Swindon railway station, now a modern industrial estate.  Andy shows the children a photo of the former station platform -  and Bob points out the railway tunnel. The Belmont Brewery - now a nightclub.  The childr...