Brunel’s Mid Point
Part 2 - A Place to Work
January’s Swindon story was interrupted by a trip to Swansea, the discovery of another purpose-built workers’ village and Terroir succumbing to the cliché of celebrating 100 blogs.
But now, as promised, we return to Wiltshire, and Brunel’s Great Western Railway, to take a look at where the inhabitants of Swindon’s ‘new town’ actually worked.
I K Brunel and Daniel Gooch (Brunel’s Superintendent of Locomotive Engines) were responsible for a mixed bag of broad gauge (7 ft ¼ inch) steam locomotives. Many of these early locos do not appear to have been particularly reliable, and a very necessary repair and maintenance depot, which Brunel sited at his perceived ‘mid-point’ between London and Bristol, opened in 1843 - vital to keep the project on the rails.
The works swiftly moved on, with GWR’s first purpose-built locomotive completed in 1846 and first standard gauge (4 ft 8 ½ inch) engine in 1855. Production of rails followed in 1861 and a carriage and wagon works was opened in 1867. 1892 saw the final conversion from broad to standard gauge and a massive engineering frenzy of line laying and rolling-stock conversion (or sidings full of wagons waiting for destruction). By 1900, the Swindon works employed 20,000 people and, at its peak in the 1930s, covered 120 ha (300 acres).
Following WWII and nationalisation, the works declined and finally closed in 1986. The site was purchased by a developer and redeveloped for commercial and residential uses. The extraordinary land use changes which have occurred since are illustrated by the two maps below.
Above: the Swindon railway works at their height.
Below: the site today.
Imagery © 2023 CNES/Airbus, Getmapping plc. Infoterra Ltd & Bluesky, Maxar Technologies,
Terroir’s straw poll on ‘three words associated with Swindon’ gave interesting results on the ‘Swindon today’ topic. The railway museum (outlined in red on the plan) did get quite a few mentions but only two responses saw fit to note the presence of the National Trust HQ and archive. Nobody mentioned English Heritage/Historic England’s appearance in the mix and – unsurprisingly - nobody highlighted the car parks and 20th /21st century residential housing development. But to our amazement only one person came up with the Designer Outlet which, with the railway museum, now dominates the southern part of the works area.
The actual popularity of the ‘outlet’ is reflected by its enormous car park and the need to arrive early if you don’t want to spend hours queueing to get in. The alternative popularity of the ‘outlet’, for a perhaps small minority, is based on the fact that the shopping element is encased in a number of the other sort of ‘shops’ (ie work-shops) which once made up the engineering heart of the Swindon Railway works.
We walked round twice and did do some shopping on the second cicuit. But, the first time, we thought we were going for a quick stroll, probably just looking at the ceiling, to search out any remnants of the industrial heritage. We discovered that the conversion to retail heaven has, in fact, left a surprising number of features which are of great interest to those who have a penchant for heritage, engineering, railways and architecture. Yes, you definitely need to look up, but there is also plenty at ground level too, which was a great relief to our aching necks.
There is also some interesting interpretation and information, if you care to look for it. We hope that the following photographic tour can give you a flavour of how retail and heavy engineering have been blended to create an unusual shopping venue with a - very sanitised - hint at what went on here in earlier years.
Staring at the ceiling did reveal a lot, particularly of the technology required to support - and lift - heavy engineering. Or support Christmas wreaths.
There was also lifting gear at ground level. The walking crane, now fenced in like some inoffensive animal in a zoo, it’s dignity further diminished by an ill-placed litter bin, was a novelty to non-engineering types such as Terroir.
Staring at the ceiling also made us realise that staring at the walls was a worthwhile exercise as well. The variety of brick types and detail created constant variety in the shopping environment. The arch was the basic element, with the exception of the huge rectangular openings (bottom right) which enabled locomotives and rolling stock to be brought right into the works.
A variety of individual artefacts, although now bereft of their original environment, do add variety and a serendipty element to the shopping experience. And they probably keep the kids going for just that little bit longer.
The most sobering element of the Outlet experience is the number of WWI war memorials, dedicated to the workers in individual shops, who left to fight the Great War but did not return. These - extremely varied - plaques are also witness to the enormous workforce which was required to make this giant engineering facility function.
Of course two key elements of the engineering environment, which were an integral part of working here, are impossibe to recreate (although the adjacent museum works hard to hint at these). The first is the noise, the heat, the dirt and the danger of employment here. The second is the human elements of a large workforce: the camaraderie, the petty rivalries, the pride in skilled work, the need for unions and for welfare, and the benefits and irritations of being part of a huge community. The images below are very alien to the work force of the 21st century.
Swindon railway works. From this:
To this:
Brunel’s Mid Point
Part 1 - A Place to Live
Back in the 20teens, it was fashionable to talk of ‘pre-Christmas pressures’ and the need to ‘escape’ to some continental city’s Christmas market for a weekend break. The lights seemed brighter, the Christmas trees more original, the glühwein more authentic, and the snow genuine. Although the Christmas trees often came up with the goods (see, for instance, ‘Season’s Greetings’ Blog 9), the rest quickly began to pall and merge into one pan European collection of little wooden huts selling woolly mittens and candles. By the end of the decade, Terroir’s pre-Christmas travels had changed focus completely and consisted of Australia (2018) and Portugal (2019). Breakfasts featuring avocado or custard tarts provided welcome alternative entertainment.
We all know what happened next but by winter 2021 we felt the need to take a break – this time from the, by now over-familiar, domestic environment. We chose Bradford. Our friends looked puzzled, and thought we were mad. I guess cabin fever is a kind of madness but the resulting blog (‘Briefly Bradford’ Blog 60) went down OK.
Below: Bradford old and new
This year, we chose Swindon. Friends just laughed. We really had lost the plot this time. Why on earth would you choose to go there? So one of us asked 21 contacts which three words came to mind when ‘Swindon’ was mentioned. The results (below) were not always predictable but, as you can probably imagine, neither was the sample particularly random! Thank you so much to all who took part. Numbers refer to the frequency of mentions.
Swine 1
Railways, trains, steam, works, Great Western Railway, railway junction, railway town, railway museum, locomotive, Brunel, Michael Portillo 12
National Trust Archives/HQ 2
Wiltshire 1
Avebury 1
Betjeman 1
Outlet 1
Swindon Town Football Club 1
Travelodge 1
Helen&Mike 1
Avoid, never been there, sounds boring, good bypass 1 each
The railway village 0, nil, nowt
Why did we go there? Railway and architectural heritage. Railway, yes, I hear you say, but architectual heritage? Where we disappointed? Read on.
It seems that people have been pottering on and around Swindon Hill - farming and quarrying, making things and loosing things - since prehistoric times.
Image right: view of Swindon Old Town from Lydiard Park
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Swindon) suggests that the earliest archaeological finds are Bronze Age and Iron Age, but it must have been quite a jolt to the local inhabitants to find themselves at the cross roads of two Roman highways.
Anglo Saxons took over from the Romans and may have been responsible for naming the hill top settlement and, as one of our correspondents surmised, many think the name is connected in some way with pigs. Swindon pops up in the Domesday Book, but you get the feeling that nothing much happened beyond agriculture, quarrying and trading for a very long time.
The next big thing was the 19th century technology and transport boom. The Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal was built in 1810, but before you could say ‘narrow boat’, railways arrived and the waterways were fighting for survival. Isambard K Brunel discovered that Swindon was about halfway between London and Bristol and, therefore, the perfect place to locate his new railway’s maintenance depot. The Great Western Railway (aka the GWR or God’s Wonderful Railway) arrived at the foot of the town’s hill in 1840 and the adjacent maintenance works opened 1843. The new town had arrived. A new world had arrived. Swindon was on the map.
The railway maintenance depot was initially designed to repair GWR’s motley collection of steam locomotives. Swindon’s tiny agricultural and quarrying workforce was not skilled in the trades required for this type of engineering and workers had to be attracted from other areas. The initial work force was measured in the low hundreds but they still needed somewhere to live. The railway was at the bottom of Swindon Hill, nearly a mile from the hill top town centre. The station and the works had to be near the railway, of course, and so the people hired to work there needed to be there too.
Thus, as early as 1842, the construction of a small railway workers’ village was commenced, located beside the railway line, at the bottom of the hill. It was completed around 1847, and made good use of Swindon’s Purbeck stone quarries. As the number of workers grew, so construction of accommodation continued in neighbouring areas, but it was this original workers’ village which Terroir had come to see.
The Railway Village predates other, perhaps better known, Victorian workers’ villages, such as Saltaire near Bradford, (see blog 60), Port Sunlight on the Wirral and Cadbury’s Bourneville estate in Birmingham. As with all these villages, intentions were good, although the company’s needs may have been at least as important as those of the tenants.
The pioneer status of the Swindon village may, perhaps, account for some of the initial problems. Today, the houses are sought after, well cared for and provided with modern amenities. In the early days, at least, this was not the case. The nearest shops were a muddy walk away, up the hillside to Swindon Old Town. Initially, the houses had no kitchens, forcing the women to attempt cooking meals on the fire in the back room. Houses were often overcrowded, as the work force increased faster than accommoddation provision, and the lack of fresh water created serious health problems.
Houses were typically two up/two down. The back room was the main living room and opened onto the paved back yard which contained the privy and basic washing facilities. The front door opened into the what would have been the ‘best room’ or parlour. Perfect for special celebrations or courting couples. The central picture above shows how two front doors were squeezed into the available space in a pair of these small terraced cottages with no internal hallways.
A small number of the houses were bigger; these were the foremans’ cottages. The front door led into a narrow hall which also gave access to the staircase. Upstairs were three bedrooms, the third often occupied by a lodger. Single men were offered accommodation in a lodging house, nicknamed the Barracks. Life here did not appeal to many, and the men missed the company and cooking of family life. It was the norm, therefore, for those with a spare room to take in lodgers and boost the family income.
One foreman’s house has been preserved by the Mechanics’ Trust and was open for a special Christmas weekend when we were there. Check their website for open days (https://mechanics-trust.org.uk/railway-village-museum/) as it’s well worth a visit.
As time progressed, many amenities were provided. Lean-to kitchens were built on the backs of the cottages, fresh water was piped in, shops were opened, a school provided (with reduced fees for GWR employees), a Mechanics’ Institute constructed and a new church (St Mark’s) consecrated. By 1851, there were even two pubs.
Non-existent health provision was quickly tackled by residents through creation of a ‘sick club’, with members’ contributions paying for their medical bills. By 1847, management was successfully petitioned to fund a doctor via a regular contribution to be taken from wages. The GWR Medical Fund Society went on to establish a village hospital (above right), dispensary and baths.
In 1844, additional land was purchased to extend the village but also to provide other amenities, including a cricket ground. By 1871, the sports ground was being transformed into a public park with all the necessary Victorian accessories: a park keeper’s lodge, glass houses, fountains and formal gardens. Sufficient space was retained to support not just cricket, but rugby, athletics and cycling. Perhaps with a touch of jingoism, a drill hall was also constructed for the 11th (Wilts) New Swindon Rifle Corps. A pavilion and later a bandstand were also added.
Sadly, the park was neglected after WWII, but is now being rejuvenated and refreshed with a new Masterplan.
How could we write a whole blog on the Great Western Railway with hardly a mention of Brunel and the mighty Swindon Railway Works? Fear not; the next blog will concentrate on the architecture of railway engineering and on ‘STEAM’ – The Museum of the Great Western Railway. For readers who are less passionate about railways in general, and steam engines in particular, don’t worry, the experience turmed out to be really rather good.