Swindon in the Past Lane

The Local Defence Volunteers, later known as the Home Guard, was launched on May 14, 1940 in response to Germany’s invasion of the Low Countries, and within 24 hours more than a quarter of a million men had come forward to join. One such volunteer was William Arthur Townsend, the son of John, a moulder at the GWR works and his wife Elizabeth.  William, also known as Art, was born in 1903 and grew up at 280 Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill. On leaving school he followed his father ‘inside’ to begin a boilermaker’s apprenticeship.  By the time war was declared in 1939 William was married with a young family. In a collection of pocket diaries William recorded his daily routine providing a unique account of one man’s war time experience in the GWR 13 th Battalion of the Home Guard.    The official age range for Home Guard volunteers was from 17-65 but there were reports of more than just a few old soldiers joining the ranks, some in their 80s. By June 1940 more t...

Little London Court is today a complex of smart, new apartments and offices, but the area once had the dubious reputation of being the meanest street in Old Swindon. The area was named after a small community from London who settled there at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By 1807 it was known as London Lane and in 1855 as London Street.  Photographs exist of a thatched cottage still standing shortly before the area was flattened during the 1960s. In 1850 George T. Clark, an officer from the Board of Health, made his damning inspection of Old Swindon.  There he found the town lacked a sewer system with the effluent from houses draining into cesspools.  All the town’s wells were contaminated while the public water supply was the dirty church pond. Inspector Clark’s report and accompanying map published in 1851 noted blood flowing down Newport Street from one of three slaughter houses in the vicinity, tainted water on Prospect Place and a filthy ope...

I first met Sam James when he was three. I was a play group assistant at Lower Shaw Farm and so was his mum, Madeline.  He enjoyed climbing and exploring – and painting, although we had to watch him as he liked to lick the paintbrushes.  He’s come a long way since then and twenty years later I caught up with him at his Swindon home. Sam, who suffers from cerebral palsy, is the eldest of six children. He attended Robert le Kynge Primary School, transferring to Commonweal School, and then going on to Cirencester College and graduating from the Royal Holloway University of London. In conversation Sam discusses education, his political beliefs and what the future might hold. It was nice going to Cirencester (College) as there was a real separation between work and home. When I was at college I worked obsessively and when I was at home I vegetated in front of the television.  It was nice to have that separation. I went to Royal Holloway University of Lond...

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...

At the turn of the second millennium the future was looking bleak for the abandoned Groundwell Farmhouse.  Left to stand empty for several years, it looked as if time was up for the Grade II listed building, which had once served as both farmhouse and arts centre. Elements of the coursed rubble stone house date from 1660 and during a survey made by the Wiltshire Buildings Record in the 1980s a 17 th  century fireplace was still in situ in the west bedroom.  The building was then described as typical of a late 16 th  or early 17 th  century Wiltshire Manor House.  But records for the Groundwell estate go back much further.  This des res was already on the up and up in 1086, appreciating from 40s to 70s at the time of the Domesday survey where it was recorded that ‘Hugh and Girald hold Grendewell from Humphrey.  Ordulf held it before 1066.’  However, even earlier than this, the Romans had appreciated the sheltered aspect of Go...

Was Richard Woolford motivated by criminal intent or poverty when he picked up his gun and headed off for Lord Bolingbroke’s land one winter’s night in 1834? Records show that Richard was charged with ‘having in the night together with a great number of other persons armed with guns, and other unlawful weapons entered a certain coppice belonging to the right honourable Lord Viscount Bolingbroke for the purpose of destroying game at Lydiard Tregoze.’ At the time of Richard’s arrest, Robert Hiscocks was the gamekeeper at the Lydiard Park estate, a position subsequently filled by his son Harry who worked alongside him in the second half of the 19 th  century.  Sporting rights across the estate were protected in the farm leases and the duties of the Lydiard Park gamekeeper included the rearing of his lordships pheasants.   Victorian gamekeepers were known to shoot at anything that threatened the birds under their protection. Richard, a 21 year old labourer ...

Last year an exhibition of Ken White’s work opened at The Post Modern, Theatre Square, Swindon to celebrate the artists' 70th birthday. In the 1980s Swindon boasted a fine collection of Ken's murals - one at Cambria Bridge, the famous ‘Swindon Personalities’ in Union Street/Prospect Place, the King Class Locomotive Passing Through Swindon Railway Works at Henry Street, to name just a few. Sadly today just one mural now remains - the Golden Lion Bridge looking down Fleming Way. And even more disgraceful is the fact that Swindon does not own a piece of Ken White’s art.  Now how on earth can that be? In 2003 Advertiser journalist Shirley Mathias was asking exactly that question. Shirley wrote: ‘But the closest Ken has come to recognition by the borough was an invitation to hang two works in a display which is part of Think Art, an event sponsored by the borough’s Swindon Arts project together with, among other supporters, Nationwide, Westfield who own the Br...