Swindon in the Past Lane

If you enjoy local history books that are full of fascinating facts and amusing anecdotes then you are going to love Swindon Photographers & Postcard Publishers. Co authored by Local Studies librarian Darryl Moody and local historian Paul A. Williams, this compendium contains details of the numerous photographers who have recorded the people and places of Swindon since the photography craze took off in the mid-nineteenth century. Darryl freely admits he has become obsessed with the weird characters and their strange lives. Most of the photographers had second jobs, many employed in the railway works, but apparently taxidermy was a popular side-line as well. Paul Williams is related to ‘Wiltshire local history royalty’ with a family connection to William Hooper (see the book for more about Hooper) and Hammerman poet Alfred Williams.  Paul brought along some of Hooper’s photographic artefacts to the book launch held yesterday at Swindon Central Library including...

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...

This impressive building once stood on the corner of Regent Circus and Commercial Road. The house was caught on camera shortly before and during its demolition in 1964. In 1901 number 34 Regent Circus was the home of Swindon solicitor Alfred Ernest Withy.  Alfred was born in Bath in 1860, the son of leather seller, shoemaker and Coffee House Keeper John Withy and his wife Sarah. Alfred grew up at addresses in and around Bath and in 1881 the family home was Tyndale Villa on Wells Road in Lyncombe and Widecombe where Alfred worked as a solicitor’s article clerk. In Trade Directories of 1889 Alfred appears listed as a solicitor and commissioner for oaths, a Wiltshire County Councillor and an insurance agent for the Alliance Fire and Life Company.  He married Florence Clinker in 1890 and the following year the couple were living at 1 Rolleston Crescent, an area identified as between Temple Street and York Place on the census returns of that year. With the newly c...

Early photographic experiments were greeted with both wonder and suspicion.  Until the mid 19th century portraits had been the prerogative of the privileged.  But with the advent of the cartes de visite in the 1850s, photography was available to all but the very poor, and Swindonians were quick to get in on the act. During the 1860s at his studio in Short Hedge, better known today as Devizes Road, J.S. Easter charged 10s 6d per dozen for the two and a half by four inch photos.  Ten years later the price had come down considerably and the magnificently named Zephaniah Dodson produced them for four shillings a dozen at his studio in Prospect.   By the 1880s the town was gripped by cartomania and the Kelly's Trade Directory of 1889 lists four photographers in Old and New Swindon. Here is a selection of photos from the Swindon Collection, Central Library - visit www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal. Taken around 1884 by Henry Hemmins This 1895 i...

The front page of the Swindon Advertiser dated Friday May 4,1900 described the event as “one of the most attractive Sales of this class of Property ever Held in Swindon." Twenty two houses and a shop in Birch Street were among other town centre properties to come under the hammer of auctioneer Mr Ernest Bishop at the Regent Circus Sale Room of Bishop and Pritchett on May 21, 1900. With a yearly income of over £945 in rents (worth about £73,300 today) it was anticipated that the properties would sell easily. Birch Street was named after Henry James Birch, an accountant at the GWR Works during the late 19th century and was built in several phases during the 1890s by at least three builders, including Arthur Colborne. Arthur Joseph, born in Midsomer Norton in 1870, was the son of Thomas Colborne, also a builder and timber merchant who by 1873 was established at the Cross Roads, Stratton St. Margaret. From 1876-1940 the Colborne family built a staggering number of propertie...

The 1970s regeneration of Swindon town centre saw the disappearance of many local landmarks, including two Victorian roadways, Cromwell Street and Brunel Street. Today the foundations lie beneath the Brunel Centre, awaiting some futuristic Time Team dig to reveal their secrets. Photographs taken in Cromwell Street before the First World War show a busy shopping street with awnings stretching into the distance. At the Regent Street crossroads Briggs & Son boast 70 years of honest value. Fast forward to 1967 and a film clip viewable on the BBC website shows the demolition in action with views of Norman's Carpet Store and Briggs Footfitters, possibly a descendent of the honest Victorian traders. Cromwell Street, Brunel Street and houses on the north side of Havelock Street were built in the late 1860s in response to the chronic shortage of housing in the town. New Swindon was experiencing a population explosion with the continued expansion of the railway works. The censu...