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.