Swindon in the Past Lane

Celebrate the launch of

Swindon in the Great War

with

the formal unveiling and dedication of the

Sanford Street School Roll of Honour Memorial

The memorial and its significance to Radnor Street Cemetery - a talk by Mark Sutton

Saturday November 23, 11.30 am

Radnor Street Cemetery Chapel

and

The launch of the Swindon Heritage Winter edition

Swindon Heritage subscribers – come and collect your copy of the Winter edition and pick up a copy of Mark Sutton’s book Tell Them of Us free on the day only

Have you been with us from the first issue - come and renew your 2014 subscription in the historic Radnor Street Cemetery Chapel?

Want to send a Christmas gift subscription for 2014 – we can organize this too - come and see us at Radnor Street Cemetery Chapel 11- 2 pm November 23.

Want to join our growing list of subscribers - if you love local history, come and meet us.

Other attractions include:

Mince pies & wine

Music of the era

Local authors Mark Child and Roger Trayhurn with copies of their books for sale

The Leggett brothers William (left) Ernest (right) commemorated on the Sanford Street School memorial

Mark Sutton

Regular readers of this blog may wonder why I'm including a reference to the newly inaugurated East End Preservation Society... but then you may already know of my passion for the marvelous Spitalfields Life blog.

I cannot now remember how I came across the Gentle Author who posts everyday without fail about the people and places of the East End. I have been reading and enjoying the thoughtful, thought provoking blog posts for more than a year, prompted by my familiarity and familial links with the East End and I have learned many a lesson that could benefit Swindon. The latest has been the inauguration of the East End Preservation Society in the wake of the loss of several historic buildings and sites at the hand of London Mayor Boris Johnson.

With the Technical College on Victoria Road in a perilous condition and situation, we in Swindon should be establishing just such an organisation. So many of our historic buildings have already been lost, it's time to stand up for those that remain.

Here is just a small selection of long lost buildings published courtesy of Swindon Local Studies.

Brunel Street

The Hermitage

The Lawn

The Baptist Tabernacle

The Market

Sanford Street Congregational Church

Still standing ... but for how long?

Now read Dan Cruickshank's opening address and be inspired.

Dan Cruickshank’s Inugural Address for The East End Preservation Society

“It should now be possible to protect our historic buildings, to maintain and improve our conservation areas, to represent and reinforce traditional communities and to create and sustain well-balanced new communities – ones that build on the rich and inclusive cultural tradition of East London.

But it seems that all these worthy expectations will not be realised without drastic, radical action. East London has reached a critical time in its long and rewarding history. Massive new developments such as the one proposed for Bishopsgate Goodsyard (which includes a series of towers from twenty-eight to five-five storeys in height) threaten to overwhelm adjoining conservation areas and infrastructure, cast shadow over communities and cause irreparable damage to established areas which have a strong character.

There is no strong evidence that developers are actually acting on opinions expressed through the consultation process – and the feeling is that the welfare of many is to be sacrificed for profits for a few.

The sound and handsome nineteen-twenties London Fruit & Wool Exchange in Spitalfields is to be largely demolished for a scheme which includes no housing, and which entails the destruction of the popular local pub, The Gun, and the eradication of the important late seventeenth-century street, Dorset St. The site could hardly be more sensitive, located in a conservation area, and opposite Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Christ Church, one of most moving historic buildings in London.

After much debate and local opposition, the scheme was originally rejected by Tower Hamlets Council – a victory for community action and local democracy – but the Mayor of London intervened and, after acting as judge and jury, overturned the local authority’s decision and granted development consent. An alternative scheme – drawn up by local groups and which kept the important existing buildings and street pattern, which built on the history of the site – which proposed some housing and which would have created local employment – was dismissed out of hand.

This story represents a collapse of local democracy, and a cynical disregard of local people and opinion. So much for democracy when it comes to the protection and enhancement of East London! So much for the opinions of local communities! So much for history!

And then pay a visit to Spitalfields Life.

Read more about Swindon's fascinating history in Swindon Heritage - the quarterly magazine for lovers of local history. The Winter edition is out now - for a list of stockists and how to subscribe visit the website.

You may also like to read

Swindonians celebrated a low key Christmas in 1940 following a year in which the war had bit hard. But the town and district made sure that the most vulnerable citizens were catered for, especially the evacuees, so far from home for the festive period.

Frank Leigh produced and starred in Jack and the Beanstalk, this year’s pantomime at the Playhouse. Leigh scored a personal triumph in his role as Dame Durden according to the Advertiser reviewer who also commented on the‘several pleasing specialities.’

At Lethbridge Road School, children from the infant class put on a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for their mothers with Jean Hawkins in the lead role of Snow White while local children and evacuees were treated to a Christmas tea and entertainment at the Club House, Shrivenham Road provided by the GWR Social Club.

The Mayor and Mayoress, Alderman and Mrs F.E. Allen made a Christmas Day visit to various homes and institutions across Swindon and district and distributed 165 threepenny pieces to children at Olive House and the Limes in Stratton. The couple also visited the GWR Medical Fund Hospital, the Isolation Hospital and the St Margaret’s Institution. Following dinner, the Mayor and Mayoress spent a short time at the Victoria Hospital before moving onto the Maternity Home where tea was provided by the Matron and staff.

Somewhat late, presumably due to heavy work load, Santa Claus paid a New Year’s Day visit to children and mothers at the Great Western Sports Club pavilion where he handed out presents from the Christmas tree. Miss Yvonne Sutton and her Kent Girls performed a cabaret show with Mr Raymond Sutton at the piano. Miss Hedges contributed a fairy dance and C Gibbs songs and step dances.

In response to a government appeal, travel on the railways was down as Swindon reported a reduction in the number of passengers over the Christmas period. Although traffic during the previous weekend and across Monday and Christmas Eve was described as‘fairly heavy’ overall numbers were considerably down on previous years.

Swindon GPO reported a reduction in Christmas mail, approximately 10% lower than during Christmas 1939. Postal workers managed to shift more than 1,000,000 cards, letters and packages in the fortnight before Christmas.

“The demand on the staff was, as expected, exceedingly heavy,” a Post Office spokesman told the Advertiser, “but thanks to the splendid co-operation of the public, everything worked extremely smoothly.”

But not everyone had the Christmas spirit. Thieves were busy over Christmas and cleared out the WVS Mobile Canteen at the Town Hall, Swindon. The canteen was closed at 5pm on Christmas Day but when Mrs R.B. Hick arrived to open up on Boxing Day she discovered the door had been completely removed and most of the stock had gone. Tins of salmon, soup, sugar and packets of cigarettes valued at about £2 had been stolen.

And sadly some mean minded thieves were accused of pilfering parcels sent to troops in camp in the West of England.

“Many parcels are being delivered with wrappers torn open, string removed, boxes broken, and some of the contents missing,” reported the Advertiser. One camp post orderly told a reporter that the parcels were received in such a bad condition that it was impossible to tell to which parcel the loose items belonged. “They have obviously been pilfered,” he said.

Christmas market

Christmas shopping

Christmas celebrations at Olive House

Yvonne Sutton and her Kent Girls

GWR Social Club Christmas party for members' children and evacuees

Frank Leigh as Dame Durden in the Playhouse pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk

If you battled yesterday's atrocious weather conditions to get home for Christmas, read about the Rebbeck family Christmas 113 years ago.

When Albert Rebbeck travelled home to Wiltshire in 1910 the journey had been 40 years in the planning.

Albert Edward Rebbeck was born at Lockeridge, near Marlborough in 1857, the fifth child of Cornelius, a land surveyor and his wife Caroline Knight.

The Rebbeck Wiltshire family roots can be traced back to the 17th century but Caroline’s family appears to be more adventurous. In 1861 her brother James was living in India and before too long three of her sons would also fly the nest.

In 1863 eldest son James Knight Rebbeck joined his uncle in Calcutta. Six years later and the couple’s next son Frank, then aged about 15 took off for America, followed by Albert.

The two boys early period in America is difficult to navigate. It appears they may even have travelled first to Canada as in 1871 the census returns for Quebec include fourteen year old Albert Rebbick, born in England and working for Dominique Fox.

In 1883 Frank married Mary Jane Bree and spent his later working life as a landscape gardener. The 1910 US census records him living at Hamilton Avenue, Passaic, New Jersey with Mary and their only daughter Ruth. Frank also served in the US army.

The grand family Christmas get together in 1910 took place at 18 Long Street, Devizes, the home of the Knight family and where Caroline had returned following the death of her husband in 1896.

Just two members of the family were missing, James, who had died at his home in Canada the previous September and Frank. For Albert this was his first visit home in forty years.

Aged 90 and an invalid, Caroline was unable to join the family for the photo call in the garden. She does, however make an appearance in a photograph held by her granddaughter Rosa. Another of Frank dressed in his Spanish-American War uniform is held by Elizabeth Rebbeck, the wife of brother Charles.

Albert returned to America where he worked as a gardener for the Linkroum family in Hackensack, New Jersey. This would be the last time he saw his Wiltshire family. He sailed out of Liverpool on the SS Laurentic on January 14, 1911.

Frank eventually made it home for one last visit, sadly on the death of his mother in 1914. He returned to the States on the SS St. Paul sailing from Southampton on February 25.

Albert never married. The brothers ended their days living together at 171 E 21st Street in Paterson, New Jersey, cared for by Frank’s daughter Ruth. Frank died on June 4, 1941 and Albert on April 20, 1944.

Images - Christmas 1910 (top) Caroline Rebbeck (middle) Cornelius Rebbeck (bottom) courtesy of Judith Rebbeck Watten.

If you were 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 residents in nearby Belle Vue Road heard his cries for help and managed to dig him out. It was reported that he called in at a cottage near the Gas Works in Drove Road where he told of his close call. That was the last time George was seen alive.

When he failed to return home a search party followed the route he would have taken back to Walcot. Despite digging through snowdrifts and searching the fields, it took them three days to find his body.

George had succumbed to the weather conditions just 200 yards from Walcot Farm house and was two fields away from his own cottage. He left a widow and seven children.

Another victim of the weather was George Head aged 22, who died walking home to Hackpen Cottage from Barbary Farm while Wootton Bassett postman Robert Strange had a lucky escape. Cut off while on his rural postal round, Strange put up for the night at a house in Bushton.

As Britain anxiously waited for the thaw, The Times reported how the regions had been affected.

SWINDON: "Weather in this neighbourhood unprecedentedly severe, and owing to snowdrifts, which in some cases are ten feet deep, the roads for many miles around are impassable. There has been no through communication between London and Swindon since the arrival of the 3 pm express from Paddington yesterday, trains being blocked. A man named Edmond Butler, 70, was frozen to death while driving from Shrivenham to Highworth on Tuesday night."

Images of the 1908 snowfall taken by William Hooper and published here courtesy of Paul Williams - for more of Hooper's work visit the Swindon Local Collection on www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/

Town Gardens

The Lawn

While changes in welfare benefits and public sector pensions dominated the headlines in 2013, in 1909 the news was much better.

The new old age pension came into effect on January 1, 1909 with approximately 600,000 people entitled to the pension at an estimated cost of £7,500,000. The Times reported many claimants were waiting outside their local post office for the doors to open, but in Swindon there was no evidence of such unseemly behaviour.

The North Wilts Herald reported that contrary to expectations “the happy recipients have shown themselves becomingly dignified by delaying their visits to the office until the streets were well aired.”

“It was amusing to see them patiently waiting their turn,” the report continued, “some palsied and physically degenerated, and others bearing their weight of years with astonishing ease.”

Money saving changes in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 introduced the notion of ‘the deserving poor’ and the spectre of the dreaded workhouse was only too real for many, especially the elderly. Although campaigning for an old age pension began in the 1880s people were forced to remain in work until they were no longer physically able to do so well in to the 20th century, a situation which looks set to return in the 21st.

The Old Age Pension Bill was formally introduced by Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the end of May 1908 and received the Royal Assent on August 1, but the scheme was quickly revealed as being fraught with anomalies.

The weekly pension was 5s for a single person, 7s 6d for a married couple. It was set low to encourage workers to make their own provision for old age and applicants had to pass a ‘character test.’

Those eligible for the old age pension had to be over 70 years old and with an annual income not exceeding £31 10s. Among those who were deemed ineligible included anyone convicted of drunkenness or who had presented a ‘habitual failure to work,’ and more problematic, anyone who had recently been in receipt of any form of poor relief.

In Wimbledon an elderly couple with considerable savings and a comfortable lifestyle declared their income from investments at 11s a week and their rent at 12s and were entitled to a pension. However, an old woman in the same borough, who was described as very poor and needy and badly in want of a pension, had received 2lb of tea in poor relief. The Pensions Committee were advised that she was not entitled to a pension.

The Advertiser interviewed Swindon Post Master Mr A. Bull who told a reporter that between 600-700 applications had been made throughout the town and district.

At the General Post Office in Regent Circus about a hundred applications were received. “Everything passed off satisfactorily,” said Mr. Bull. “The old people, as far as I saw them, were very respectable.”

Some respectable old people

An unidentified Swindon woman photographed by Henry Hemmins

They might not be old - and I'm wondering how 'respectable' these two thespians were! They look a bit saucy to me. Percy North and Alice M. Tolchard appearing at the Empire.

An unidentified Swindon man pictured by Jules Sigismund Guggenheim

William Morris - founder of The Swindon Advertiser - the model of respectability.

And a particular favourite from the Andy Binks Collection of scary (but respectable) ladies

This group looks respectable - but do they have the potential to turn nasty? 1910 Lower Village looking up from Large's Farm, Blunsdon.

And finally - the Goddard family. They couldn't be anything other than respectable - although I'm not sure about the bowler hat wearing youth.

All these photographs and more than 8,700 more are free to view on http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/

Late afternoon on Tuesday April 14, 1896, a gang of five Swindon platelayers were engaged on some repairs to the line in the Sapperton tunnel, some four miles east of Stroud, between Swindon and Gloucester. Ganger Frederick Gee, a 47 year old father of seven was working alongside H. Ballard and E. Greenaway when a warning sounded the approach of a down train.

The men quickly jumped out of the way on to the other set of metals but in so doing stepped straight into the path of an oncoming up train which had entered the tunnel at the same moment. H. Ballard and E. Greenaway were killed outright. The Times reported that ‘their bodies were mutilated in a shocking manner.’

But at least their deaths would have been quick, unlike poor Frederick who suffered terrible injuries, his left arm amputated and his skull severely fractured.

Help was slow in coming. Frederick and the other two injured men were eventually picked up by a passenger train passing through the tunnel half an hour after the accident. At Stroud the men were taken from the railway station to the hospital, causing what was described as ‘a painful sensation in the town.’

The injured men were J. Hillsley who sustained concussion of the brain, scalp wounds and bruised limbs, according to the reports and W. Pointer who was allowed to return home during the course of the evening. But poor Frederick died en route to the hospital.

Back home in Swindon Frederick’s wife Mary Ann had a family of seven to support, with five children under 10 years of age, including a baby son just a few months old.

Frederick was buried in Radnor Street cemetery where in 1900 the couple’s sixteen year old daughter Rosa Ethel was buried alongside him and four years later their son Harry Howard, aged 21. In just a few short years Mary Ann had lost her husband and two of her children, but she was made of stern stuff.

On March 14, 1907, with her four youngest sons Sidney 17, Ernest 15, Frank 13 and eleven year old Wilfred, Mary Ann set sail on onboard the SS Cymric for a new life in the United States of America.

The 1920 United States Federal Census finds Mary Ann living at 2163 Lake Street in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1918 daughter Emily had joined the family and on the same census she is living with her husband and two young daughters in neighbouring South Street. Elder siblings Bessie and Frederick Richard James were the only two members of the family who remained in Swindon.

Mary Ann even remarried, although she would also outlive her second husband William A. Tolman. She died on April 3, 1929 in her adopted home of Salt Lake City.

Sapperton Tunnels

Salt Lake City

Views across Radnor Street Cemetery.

Debt collecting might not be an obvious career choice for genteel ladies but by 1915 the old social order was on the way out as women took to the streets demanding equality and the vote.

In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst established the Women’s Social and Political Union at her home in Nelson Street, Manchester and at Oxford House, 57 Victoria Road, Swindon three sisters established their own financial business.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales set up in 1880, discussed admitting females in 1895. However it would be 1919 before the first woman became a member.

Rosa, Mabel and Florence Clarke were three of William Clarke’s four daughters. At the time of the 1881 census the family lived at 17 Wellington Street. William worked as an Iron Turner in the GWR Works, but he was an ambitious, intelligent and determined young man.

Ten years later William had moved his family up the social ladder and up the hill to a house in Victoria Road where he worked as a solicitor’s clerk. Oxford House dates from around the end of the 19th century when development at the northern end of Victoria Street began. Known first as New Road and then later as Victoria Street North the road was eventually renamed Victoria Road in 1903.

When William died on December 16, 1898, the obituary in the Advertiser recalled how for many years he had been employed as a mechanic in the GWR Works. ‘But eventually [he] resigned his post to act as an accountant and debt collector. In the latter capacity he has worked up undoubtedly the largest business of the kind in the county, and has been of great assistance to the business men of the town,” the report continued.

The sisters took over their father’s business following his premature death and in the 1901 census Rosa states her occupation as accountant working from home ‘on her own account,’ Lily and Mabel do not state an occupation. Florence, however, who was staying with friends in Devizes on census night 1901, also describes herself as an accountant.

Rosa died in 1904, leaving the administration of her will to Florence. The two remaining sisters kept Rosa’s initial letter R in the company name.

While the campaigning suffragettes boycotted the 1911 census, refusing to be counted without representation, Florence and Mabel Clarke are recorded still in business at 57 Victoria Road.

In 1918 Mabel died, leaving an estate of £2,609 4s to her surviving business partner and sister Florence. Interestingly, when Rosa and Mabel died neither sister received the press recognition that their father had.

Lily was the only one of the four sisters to forego a career in favour of a husband and family. In 1901 she married Charles Rix Jeyes, a quantity surveyor for the London & North Western Railway Co. At the time of the 1911 census the couple were living at The Hollies, Priests Lane in Shenfield, Essex with their four young children.

Florence carried on the business following Mabel’s death in 1918 but by 1920 the North Wilts Trade Directory records that H.T. Kirby, registrar of births and deaths, living at 57 Victoria Road.

The subject of numerous unsuccessful planning applications in recent years, Oxford House today is boarded up and derelict.

Number 57 in happier times as captured by www.cartercollectables.co.uk December 1983.

Following my post yesterday about the Clarke sisters and 57 Victoria Road, Brian Carter has contacted me with the story of another occupant of this once elegant property.

Thanks, Frances, for an interesting story featuring a building to which I have a personal connection.

My reason for photographing it in 1983 was that the first floor was then the offices of Architect Drew. This was the business of my late father-in-law, Geoffrey Drew (and his secretary - my mother-in-law - Elisabeth Drew).

Geoff was born in Southampton in 1928, was evacuated to Corfe Castle during World War II, and started his working life in Ipswich. Later, he went into partnership in a business in Bristol. This brought him to Swindon for the first time in the 1960s (his first job in the town was working on the original BHS shop in Swindon town centre).

He set up a satellite office in Swindon and liked the place so much that he spent the rest of his life in Bishopstone, and married my future mother-in-law in 1972.

He set up in business on his own in 1981 - briefly in Newport Street, before moving to 57 Victoria Road. In about 1999, they vacated those premises and worked from home in Bishopstone.

Sadly, Geoff died in 2006, aged 77.

I'm quite sure that he didn't know the story of the Clarke sisters, which is a great shame. As an architect, he was naturally interested in buildings and their history. But he was even more interested in people and their stories. I'm certain that he would very much have approved of the Clarke sisters.

And had be been the right age to have ever met them, then I know he would have supported and encouraged them.

Despite not being born in Swindon, Geoff considered himself an honourary Swindonian. He was an active member and past president of Swindon Rotary Club and a keen Swindon Town fan - being a season ticket holder for many years.

His other passions were railways and aircraft. Having been born in Southampton, the Southern Railway was in his blood, but he was also very fond of the Great Western Railway and a member of the GWR Preservation Society at Didcot. He was especially pleased to have seen the first Spitfires making test flights above his home during his childhood. Not surprisingly, the love of aircraft (though not of flying) stayed with him all his life.

In the Swindon area, Geoff left a legacy of countless buildings which he designed. Most of these were private houses, but he also designed the occasional commercial or community building. These included the Focal Point building near Swindon Bus Station and the Church of Christ the Servant in Abbey Meads.

Brian Carter (Carter Collectables)

Ironically the dedication on the official Swindon Roll of Honour reads 'Their Glory Shall Not Be Blotted Out, Their Name Liveth For Evermore.' Whilst it might not be exactly blotted out, the magnificent memorial lies hidden behind curtains in the dance studio at Swindon's Town Hall and today is seldom seen.

The memorial was erected by public subscription and in the same spirit the Swindon in the Great War committee launched its own fund raising memorial project 'Adopt a Tommy.'

You are invited to adopt one of the servicemen whose name appears on the memorial. For £10 you will receive a certificate based on the one the returning soldiers, sailors and airmen received and details of that man's service.

I've 'adopted' Edward William Reginald Bevan. Why? He is no relation, but I share his surname and because he served at sea. My husband comes from Milford Haven, a small former fishing town on the Pembrokeshire coast. Generations of his family depended upon the sea for their livelihood. Uncles and cousins worked as trawlermen, aunties and sisters worked in the fishmarket or making fishing nets or in the ship's stores. My father in law William Edward Lewis Bevan served in the navy during WWII and following the war worked as a shipwright on the docks.

It seemed fitting that I should adopt Engine Room Artificer E W R Bevan. This is the wartime story of Edward and his wife Mabel.

Beatrice Street lake, an old clay pit at the back of the Princess Hotel, was the scene of a near tragedy when a young naval widow, overwhelmed by grief, poverty and worry, tried to end her life.

Mabel Hurst was born in 1890 and grew up in Wellington Street, Swindon, the daughter of Francis Hurst, a fitter in the Works, and his wife Elizabeth Ann.

In 1912 she married submariner Edward Bevan and the couple made their home in Plymouth. An Engine Room Artificer on HMS 'E 16' Edward was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in January 1916 but just seven months later he was lost at sea when the E16 was sunk by a mine in Heligoland Bight on August 22, 1916. There were no survivors.

Mabel returned home to Swindon with her two children. She took in a lodger to try to help make ends meet, but he attacked her and beat her up.

Eventually Mabel felt she could no longer carry on and jumped in the stretch of water behind Beatrice Street. She was rescued by a passing policeman who marched her home, dripping wet. With little compassion, he pointed at her children and told her to look after them, a scene that lived long in the memory of her daughter.

For details on how to Adopt a Tommy see below.

Mabel and her baby son John

Today is Jon Ratcliffe's last day behind the enquiry desk in Local Studies at Swindon Central Library as the busy department is reduced to one full time post and one part time.

Jon has worked with the Local Studies team for two years, one year volunteering and one year as a member of staff. He will be greatly missed by his colleagues and the many visitors to this fantastic archive who have benefited from his knowledge of local and family history research. His area of expertise has been the architecture of our town, both old and not so old and he has contributed some stunning photographs to the library online archive.

When the latest round of restructuring hit the library we were assured there would be no further cuts to front line staff. However, Local Studies has been hit under the guise of back room efficiencies. I for one am not convinced by this argument as the immediate impact is a reduction in the number of hours the enquiry desk will be able to open. Visitors needing help with their research projects will have to make an appointment; those who just pop in on the off chance will be unaware of the vast resources available to them - if only there were someone there to ask!

With the forthcoming First World War centenary fast approaching more and more people will be wanting to trace their family members who served. How do you begin that first step in your research? By visiting the Local Studies department of your local library.

While remaining staff members grapple with the logistics of continuing to provide the comprehensive service customers are used to, future planned events continue. There will be a schedule of talks and drop-in sessions with the Archivists from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre while there will also be a new run of the free family history drop-in sessions facilitated by volunteers from the Wiltshire Family History Society. Other events include a talk exploring the tunnels of Swindon and events and projects relating to the Great War centenary.

Look out for the library strategy on www.swindon.gov.uk/librarystrategy and to have your say on future plans for all of Swindon's libraries email krwilliams@swindon.gov.uk. And keep up with events by reading The Link Magazine.

And goodbye and good luck to Jon in his new job. He assures us he will keep in touch.

Swindon Central Library, Regent Circus

The newly opened Local Studies department pictured in 2008.

From the archives - Local Studies, Central Library, Regent Circus

Type Swindon Central Library into Google search and enjoy a virtual tour of the building!

Regulars at the Southbrook Inn may be unaware that their favourite watering hole was once a dairy farm. In 1986 the 18^thcentury building received a Grade II listing but a farm has stood on this site for much longer.

When the property came up for sale in 1763 Thomas Goddard, Lord of the Manor of Swindon, was ready to sign on the dotted line, having informed his attorney, Mr Thomas Athawes, that he was ‘very well satisfied with the Title of Southbrook Farm.’

The Abstract of Title over which Thomas Goddard had cast his discerning eye dated from 1669 and is available for consultation at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. This document provides a detailed history of the property and its various owners and occupiers across nearly 100 years.

The property in Rodbourne Cheney was included in the marriage settlement of local couple Thomas Richmond alias Webb and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Sir William Thomson in 1690.

By 1763 the property and 90 acres of land in Rodbourne Cheney belonged to Sir Benet Garrard of Lamer in Hertfordshire and consisted of the farmhouse and outbuildings and closes of land called Great and Little Southbrook, Little Pining, Twenty Swaiths and Bottom Mead. As part of the sale Thomas Goddard also bought fields named Sheep Sleight, Hedges Ground, a ten acre field named after an earlier tenant farmer called Thomas Hedges, and Long Furlong adding a further 39 acres to the holding. At the time of the sale the farm was occupied by Anthony Wetherston with former tenant Charles Pike also receiving a mention.

Thomas Goddard paid £3,700, worth today in the region of £5 million, when he signed the indenture on Southbrooke House on April 5, 1763.

Thirty years later Ambrose, another member of the Goddard dynasty, agreed a 14 year lease on the property with Thomas Washbourne, John Brunsden and Charles Barrett who paid an annual rent of £157 10s to jointly farm the 132 acre farm.

Following the Tithe Computation Act of 1836 maps were drawn up of every parish in England and Wales and the properties along with land usage, owners and occupiers were recorded, an invaluable resource for local and family historians.

In 1841 the Tithe Apportionments reveal that Thomas Wiltshire was the tenant at Southbrook, then measuring 198 acres. The familiar 17^th century field names of Southbrook, Long Furlong, Twenty Swaths and Sheep Street are still listed along with one parcel of land called Dining Room Corner and a lane called Rogues Road.

By the mid 1840s the Butler family had begun their long tenancy at the farm, first William Butler and later his son John Handy Butler. The 19^th century closed with William Davis signing a year to year lease on the property.

In 1898 Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard sold part of the land to builder William Hobbs, heralding the end of the farming at Southbrook. However despite the continuing development at Gorse Hill north of the railway line, Southbrook Farm retained its buffer of open fields into the 20^thcentury.

The former farmhouse opened as a public house on March 15, 1956 when the license was transferred from the Golden Lion on Bridge Street which had closed that same year.

Southbrook Street was built in 1906 on the former farm track. Architect P.H. Thomas designed All Saint’s Church which opened in 1937.

Local newspapers can be a wonderful resource for the family historian, especially if a well to do ancestor hits upon hard times.

The King family roots in the parish of Lydiard Tregoze date back to the 18th century when they farmed areas now buried beneath the 1980s West Swindon development. Richard Dore King was born in about 1776 and by 1812 was married and living at Mannington Farm.

Mannington, along with Toothill and Whitehill Farms, formed part of the Charterhouse estate in Lydiard Tregoze. Thomas Sutton bought the three farms in 1605 to help finance the hospital and school for 40 poor boys he founded on the site of a Carthusian Monastery in the Smithfield area of London.

By 1828 it appears the King family had hit hard times. An advertisement in the local press announced that Swindon auctioneer William Dore would be conducting an extensive sale at Mannington Farm ‘under a distress for rent and an assignment for the benefit of creditors.’

The three day sale began on Wednesday December 18 and drawing attention to the shortness of the days and the great number of lots, Mr Dore asked prospective buyers to attend on time.

Among the animals for sale were 36 cows and two bulls, seven cart horses and three nag horses. There were water troughs, cow cribs and sheep cages along with post and rails, scales and weights and tools of husbandry on the for sale list.

Everything in the dairy was up for grabs as well, from a capital oak double cheese press to milk buckets and yokes and about three hundred weight of Thin Cheeses, a North Wiltshire speciality.

But saddest of all was the sale of household furniture, particularly the beds, a much prized possession in any early 19th century home. Richard’s wife Elizabeth would no doubt have shed a tear over parting with her ‘two lofty four post Bedsteads in chintz and cotton furniture with window curtains to match, capital goose feather and flock beds, Mattresses, Blankets, sheets, quilts and coverlets.’

From two mahogany dining tables with circular ends and two sets of horsehair dining chairs to sundry prints glazed and framed, there could have been little left in the spacious farmhouse at the end of the three day sale.

What had led to Richard’s predicament remains unknown, but he obviously owed a lot of people, including his Charterhouse landlords, a lot of money.

But this wasn’t the end of Richard Dore King. At the time of the 1841 census he was living at North Lains Farm in Even Swindon. He died two years later and is buried in the churchyard at St. Mary’s, Lydiard Tregoze, his grave surmounted by an impressive monument. Now that must have cost a bob or two back in the day.

The King dynasty continued and in 1851 Richard’s widow Elizabeth King was living at Whitehill Farm, another Charterhouse property, with her unmarried son and daughter, Richard Dore King junior and Sarah Sheppard King.

When Richard Dore King junior died in 1862 he left effects to the value of about £5,000, worth in the region of £4 million today.

The former Whitehill Farmhouse on Beaumaris Road is a Swindon Borough Council property and Mannington House has been converted into flats.

Mannington Farmhouse

Whitehill Farmhouse

The King family graves at St Mary's Church, Lydiard Tregoze.

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The summer of 2008 saw the BBC's Antiques Roadshow set up camp in the grounds of Lanhydrock, a country house in Cornwall where a piece of Lydiard Tregoze local history made a surprise appearance.

Expert Penny Britten provided a brief history of the printed Valentine and valued the 200 year old handmade one sent to Roadshow visitor Graham's great-great-great grandmother Alice Crook in 1803.

Alice Catherine Crook was born in Lydiard Tregoze in 1782, the daughter of Simon Crook and his wife the former Elizabeth Woolford. Flaxlands Farm, part of the Lydiard Park estate owned by Lord Bolingbroke, was occupied by the Woolford family at the time of the couple's marriage in 1777, with Simon taking over the tenancy in 1782.

Although unsigned, Alice knew the sender of her Valentine. Richard Hallilay, born in Greenwich in 1785, was the son of local girl Sarah Goddard and her husband, Richard Hallilay. Graham supposes Alice and Richard might have enjoyed a holiday romance when the young Richard visited family at nearby Cliffe Pypard.

Richard had given Alice a writing case, some puzzles and a decorated poem as a Christmas present in 1802. A comparison of the handwriting made it easy to identify the sender of the Valentine.

The intricate Valentine opens to reveal eight heart shaped sections on each of which the love struck Richard wrote a verse of poetry. The poem opens with 'To you I write my dear A.C./Do not refuse the line./The boon I ask, pray will you be/My faithful Valentine.' Each section is decorated with love birds, hearts and Cupid's arrows.

Sadly the romance ended and by 1804 Richard was employed as a paymaster in the navy. Perhaps the star crossed lovers were separated by Richard's ambitions. Naval records indicate that he went on to hold a senior administrative post and in 1851 he was Agent and Steward at the Royal Hospital at Haslar in Hampshire.

Alice went on to marry Robert Gray, a coach proprietor. After their wedding on November 12, 1812, Alice moved to Robert's home at a busy coaching inn on Ludgate Hill in the City of London - a far cry from the farm in Lydiard Tregoze.

Graham believes that Alice died before 1837 and there is no evidence of her on the 1841 census. The Valentine, preserved with other family letters and documents, has been passed down the generations from mother to daughter. It is presently in the safekeeping of Graham's sister.

Today in the East End of London a group of dedicated people are trying to save the Smithfield General Market Hall -'Behold the winged lion on the Holborn Viaduct looking down protectively upon the Smithfield General Market,' writes the Gentle Author onwww.spitalfieldslife.com.'as - over at the Guildhall the Public Enquiry that will decide the fate of this magnificent building designed by Horace Jones, the architect of Tower Bridge, reaches the end of its second week.'

Read more about this threatened building by clicking the link - now read about Swindon's former market buildings, which sadly have also been lost.

In the 1840s Old Swindon had a thriving shopping centre. Blacksmiths, butchers and brewers rubbed shoulders alongside the Strange family's drapers store in the High Street and Sadler Bristow's ironmongers in Wood Street.

But in the developing settlement at the bottom of the hill facilities for the early settlers in New Swindon were decidedly lacking. Apart from the factory and the company houses there was very little else in the new railway village - that was until the formation of the New Swindon Mechanics' Institution in 1843 when things began to look up.

First there was a circulating library, then concerts, lectures and evening classes, and eventually a magnificent building in which to house it all.

Plans for the new Mechanics Institute included a reading room public baths and at the southern end of the site the market hall, ending the housewives long trek up through Prospect to the shops in Old Town.

Built in an octagonal shape with a fountain at the centre, the market hall contained 34 stalls. But Old Swindon traders were slow to recognise the new business potential and the original opening date scheduled for October 25, 1864 was postponed.

The market eventually opened on Friday evening, November 3 with just eleven pitches occupied. Bargains to be had that first evening were ha'penny herrings. Early traders included John Blackford who had a butcher's shop in Wood Street and the Ready Made Clothes Depot & General Drapery Warehouse.

On Bonfire Night 1859 the market hall was the site of an horrific accident. A group of youngsters let off 'a cannon loaded with fireworks' to give the stall holders a fright. Their prank was to have devastating consequences when a nine year old girl was hit in the leg. Her injuries were so severe that the GWR Company doctor, Dr. Swinhoe, had to amputate the limb at the scene of the accident.

Despite the obvious need for such provision, the market was surprisingly never a great success. The 1870s saw the building neglected and by the 1880s it had become a public nuisance, the chief complaint being the smell caused by the fishmongers. The market was eventually demolished in 1892 to make way for a new extension to the Mechanics Institution.

A new market hall on the corner of Commercial Road opened on October 15, 1892. It was covered over in 1903 at a cost of £5,000 when it was described as containing '17 shops and 80 stalls for the use of country dealers etc.'

The distinctive Market Hall was demolished in 1977 when Swindon town centre was redeveloped with stall holders transferring to accommodation in the new Brunel Centre.

For 17 years the plot of land served as a car park until the market made a comeback. Known locally as 'the tented market' the new market place was completed in six months at a cost of £1.1 million. The five 'tent' peaks were to represent the fairground, once a feature of country town markets.

Never as popular as its predecessor, the market closed in October 2007. The evicted stall holders were told the structure was due for immediate demolition. After standing empty for more than two years the market reopened in October 2009.

Read more about the Mechanics Institution on http://mechanics-trust.org.uk/
Images - Mechanics Institution; Market; Commercial Road Market Hall courtesy of Swindon Local Studies visit their website on www.flickr.com/photos/SwindonLocal

During the 1930s building contractor E.H. Bradley was averaging more than 300 houses a year - and they also built Avebury stone circle as well!

In 1939 when marmalade millionaire Alexander Keiller, owner of Avebury Manor, set about renovating the henge, he employed Swindon builder Edwin Bradley to reconstruct the Neolithic stone circle.

Not the biggest project the firm would ever undertake but arguably the most prestigious. Apparently Keiller was to complain that he paid the bill while Bradley's enjoyed the glory.

Edwin Henry Bradley was born at Iffley Road, Cowley in Oxford in 1865, the youngest of William and Helen Bradley's three sons. The son of a bricklayer, Edwin followed his father into the construction, but it was his marriage to milliner Caroline Hubert in 1894 that was to kick start his ambition.

Edwin recognised the building opportunities in neighbouring Swindon and in 1896 moved his growing young family to a small terrace house in Quarry Road where he began work as a foreman for Joseph Williams.

It was his employer's bankruptcy in 1901 that proved to be the catalyst for the Bradley empire when Edwin made the decision to go into business for himself.

In 1902 the family moved into 71 Goddard Avenue where he built 21 terraced houses in a matter of twelve months, followed by 101 houses in Ferndale Road.

Edwin submitted building applications for 24 houses in Kingshill Road in 1914 and a further on Wroughton Road in 1915 before the First World War called a halt to his operations.

Hubert Bradley, Edwin's eldest son, enlisted in the Royal Army Service Corps on September 7, 1914 returning to Swindon upon discharge from the army nearly five years later.

Edwin celebrated his safe return by changing the company name. Edwin H. Bradley & Son, proudly boasted that they were 'Builders & Contractors, Quarrymen, Lime Burners & Builders Merchants, Contractors to the Swindon Corporation & Royal Engineers, Chisledon Camp.

Bradley's survived the post war depression and the 1930s saw the firm at the top of their trade, and things could only get better.

In the 1950s Bradley homes were built on post war Swindon developments at Greenmeadow and Nythe. And in 1980 Princess Anne opened the Westlea Down Show Village, a 600 acre site to the west of the developing town. The area comprised 288 acres residential, 71 acres industrial and commercial, a 36 acre District Centre and 44 acres for schooling with a further 95 acres designated for open space.

Edwin Bradley was the archetypal self made man, whose work was his hobby and who never lost interest in the firm. He died on November 5, 1956 aged 91. The previous day he had been out with son Lionel, touring some of the company's building sites.

images - E.H. Bradley; men at work reconstructing the Avebury stone circle courtesy of 'Bradley - Building on a Name' the History of Edwin H. Bradley and Sons Ltd.,

When Swindon Corporation bought the old Goddard mansion house and 52 acres of parkland, it also acquired the ruins of Holy Rood Church, the town's original parish church. In 1947 the borough surveyor reported to Town Clerk, David Murray John, on the sorry state of the burial ground and chapel at The Lawn. Many of the tombs had been vandalised with the coverings and side slabs removed while the sheet lead covering on the Goddard family vault had been taken.

"In the chapel itself, a number of plaques have been wrenched from the walls and a hole has been cut in the outer wall on the North Side," wrote the inspector. Sadly even the stone font had been smashed and scattered around the Chapel.

It is believed that a church had stood on the site of Holy Rood since Norman times but the earliest mention of one dates from the 12th century when it was given to the Augustinian priory of Southwick by the Pont de l'Arche family.

Alongside the burials of Swindon worthies such as the Goddard and Vilett family members are those of William Levett's two children. A courtier to King Charles I, Levett accompanied the King during his imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and also attended him prior to his execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649. Originally from Wiltshire, Levett retired to Swindon after the King's death where in 1658 he leased the 'mansion house lately occupied by Anne Goddard in Swindon.'

In 1845 a new church, St. Marks, was built in the railway village to cater for the ever increasing population of New Swindon. Meanwhile the old parish church of Holy Rood, by then already in a state of disrepair, struggled to accommodate the growing congregation in Old Swindon.

Building began on a new parish church, Christ Church, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and upon completion in 1851, Holy Rood was partially demolished. It is thought that the Goddard's gazebo was built around this time using materials from the old church tower. The farmhouse at Church Farm also included masonry taken from the old church.

In his book 'Swindon Fifty Years Ago (More or Less) published in 1885, William Morris, founder of the Swindon Advertiser, describes the fixtures and fittings of the church including the 'box pews, of all heights and sizes.' Morris mourns the passing of older forms of worship and writes how before the introduction of the ubiquitious organ, the choir was accompanied by 'a bass-viol, a violin, a flute, a clarionet, sometimes a trumpet.'

Following the borough surveyor's damning report what remained of the chapel was repaired and secured. Today the building is seldom opened but can usually be viewed during the English Heritage Open Days which this year will be held on September 11-14, 2014 - visit www.english-heritage.org.uk for confirmation and more details.

The church registers date from 1623 and can be viewed on microfiche at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. Holy Rood marriages 1623-1754 can also be viewed on line at the Church of the Latter Day Saints website www.familysearch.org