If you haven’t got around to visiting the Richard Jefferies Museum yet this spring, then Sunday June 2 is the perfect time to do so.
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Take a trip on the Coate Water Miniature Railway, making sure you alight at the Richard Jefferies Halt. Visit the museum, enjoy a walk around the grounds and partake of a cream tea in the Mulberry Tearoom, but make sure you are present for the unveiling of the Swindon Heritage blue plaque at 3 pm.
This will be the 8th Swindon Heritage blue plaque erected to mark significant people, places and events in the history of Swindon.
The first was installed in May 2016 at 24 North Street, the birthplace of militant suffragette Edith New who campaigned for women’s suffrage alongside Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters and engaged in innovative and dangerous methods of protest.
The second and third blue plaques were installed in a double event to honour the bravery of Squadron Leader Harold Morley Starr and his brother Wing Commander Norman John Starr who were both killed in action during the Second World War. The blue plaques were installed in September 2016 at the Savoy, Regent Street, a building which stands on the site of the brothers’ birthplace.
Next came a blue plaque tribute to blonde bombshell, actress and singer Diana Dors who was born Diana Fluck in 1931 at the Haven Nursing Home, 61-62 Kent Road.
The next blue plaque was installed in May 2018 at 44 Kent Road, the former home of Swindon Town Football Club legend Sam Allen.
In June 2018 a blue plaque was installed on the GWR Medical Fund HQ and Baths, a building with huge significance to the town and where Swindon's home grown National Health Service was up and running in the nineteenth century.
In November 2018 a Swindon Heritage blue plaque was installed on the Goddard Arms, where the first Masonic meeting of the Royal Sussex Lodge took place on May 1, 1818.
The installation of the 8th Swindon Heritage blue plaque, dedicated to celebrated nature writer, John Richard Jefferies, who was born on the small farm at Coate takes place at 3 pm on Sunday June 2.
For more details about the Swindon Heritage blue plaque recipients visit the website.
