Following an hiatus of more than a year, Swindon in the Past Lane is back with a smart new layout.
And you might like to take a look at my latest venture, the Radnor Street Cemetery blog (published every Thursday) which shines a light on researched and re-imagined stories of the people who made our vibrant town.
A lot has happened in the past 20 months. Sadly the beautiful Swindon Heritage magazine has ceased publication. Some back editions are still available at the Library Shop in Swindon Central Library and during Radnor Street Cemetery walks and Swindon Society meetings.
To re-launch Swindon in the Past Lane I am publishing a few of the stories I wrote for Swindon Heritage, beginning with the history of Swindon's brickworks and an interview with local historian Jan Flanagan.
When Charles A Wheeler put his two acre brickworks on Stratton St Margaret Road up for sale in 1861 he knew it wouldn’t stay on the market for long.
‘The great demand for dwelling houses consequent on the recent decision as to vastly increasing the Locomotive Works cannot fail to create a thriving brick trade,’ the advertisement boasted. Mr Wheeler wasn’t wrong.
Much of Swindon is built on Kimmeridge clay, which is ideal for brick making. Thomas Turner’s brickworks on Drove Road, now the site of Queen’s Park, dates from the 18th century and another kiln in the area of the Pipers Way Roundabout dates from around 1773.
The repeal of the brick tax in 1850 saw a resurgence in brick making, just as building was taking off in New Swindon. Canal historian Jan Flanagan, featured in our Spring issue, has plotted 19 local brickworks on the Swindon and district map and continues to add to the list.
In 1841 J.D. & C. Rigby began work on the railway factory. Although most of the early Works buildings were stone built, bricks were used in the construction of the station, internal walls in the railway village cottages, brick lined drainage channels and paving in the railway factory. Records reveal that Rigby’s used a subcontractor called E. Oldham, paying him £3,900 ‘on account of bricks delivered at Swindon between October 1841 and April 1842.’
In the mid 19th century bricks were brought in from neighbouring counties and even as far afield as Wales. Advertisements placed in the local press asked for tenders for good hand burnt bricks ‘100 thousand wanted immediate, and 50,000 a week afterwards.’
When the northern range of the railway works was extended to include a tender shop and paint shop in 1876 the GWR had its own brickworks. But even these kilns could only supply some of the required bricks.
In the 1870s the Swindon Brick & Tile Company, Wiltshire’s largest brickworks, with its mighty Hoffman kiln capable of producing 25,000 bricks a day, couldn’t keep up with demand either.
By the end of the 19th century development was extending into Rodbourne Cheney along the old Telford Road, later renamed Cheney Manor Road. The Rodbourne Brickworks, owned by John Belcher is remembered today in the naming of the Old Brickyard industrial estate at Kiln Lane.
In 1899 Gorse Hill boasted two brickyards. One on Chapel Street owned by the Swindon Gas Company and one on Florence Street owned by the Gorse Hill Brick & Tile Company.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of Swindon, when New and Old Town became one, John Betjeman took a walk around the streets, later writing – ‘There is very little architecture in Swindon and a great deal of building.’ He did add, however – ‘But Swindon is more interesting than many towns which are more beautiful.’
Jan Flanagan is a familiar face on the local history circuit because of her research into the Wilts and Berks Canal but less well known is her historic brick collection.
Along with studying boatmen and boardroom managers, she has followed the transportation of materials on the local waterway – and it was this latest strand of research that led her to acquiring a barrow load of bricks.
Quick to credit fellow enthusiast Ted Browning with accruing the collection, Jan now has several crates of bricks stored beneath a lean-to in her Old Town garden and continues to add to her treasure trove.
“I was hoping they’d all be Swindon bricks,” she said, but the diverse collection includes samples from neighbouring counties as well as the Welsh valleys and the recently demolished Rodbourne Arms.
As Jan points out, despite the proliferation of 19thcentury brickmakers, local builders were forced to advertise for bricks and then ‘import’ them – evidence of the huge demand for building materials during the Victorian period.
Within 10 years of the arrival of the GWR Works, the population of the new, industrial town stood at more than 2,000, and by the 1850s the company houses in the Railway Village were already overcrowded, so New Swindon embarked upon a building boom that would last for the rest of the century.
Engineering bricks, house bricks and even a white glazed Durex brick from a Swindon chemist feature in her collection. There are silver grey bricks used to build houses along Marlborough Road, a hand-made brick from a farm building on Stone Lane, Lydiard Millicent, and a crumbling Thomas Turner brick.
Properties with Turner’s trademark ‘potter’s face’ can still be found around Swindon, and the two catalogue houses in Drove Road were an advertisement for his brickworks – today the site of Queen’s Park.
Her growing paper archive includes deeds and indentures of these brickyards, revealing the complicated property dealings in rapidly developing Victorian Swindon. And she has been able to identify the site of former brickworks beneath some of today’s prime town centre locations.
In the 1870s the Swindon Brick and Tile Company’s yard in Spring Gardens was described as “the largest brickworks in Wiltshire” with a Hoffman kiln capable of firing 25,000 bricks a day. “The kiln was underneath where the Range is today,” said Jan.
Research has revealed clay pits and brickyards dotted across Swindon and district area, and Jan has listed 19 brickworks in the town – and says there are more to be plotted on the map.
Every small village with a swathe of suitable clay exploited this natural resource to make bricks.
Jan’s growing brick collection opens a window on the building of New Swindon and the frenetic growth of the industrial town.
