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Swindon Society Old Town Walk
This week saw members of the Swindon Society take to the streets as the local history enthusiasts joined in with Lethbridge Primary School's Victorian project.The eight and nine year olds had already...
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Swindon Heritage
Do not be fooled by the casual mien of this group of people, chatting, making tea, waving. This group knows more about the collective history of Swindon and its surrounds than you can shake a stick...
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Christmas Fair at Lower Shaw Farm
Jane Stephens's tie dyed babygrosJam jar lanterns lit a frost encrusted pathway to a magical world of mince pies, mulled wine and crafts at the Lower Shaw Farm Christmas Fair last evening. The former...
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General Election 1945
W.W. Wakefield Conservative MPWith the war in Europe over, Winston Churchill faced increasing pressure at home to call a General Election. Winding up the wartime National Government he went to the...
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Albert Beaney at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery has possibly the largest family album ever - and they want to know the names of everyone pictured in it.The albums contain 40,000 photographs taken in the 1940s-70s by...
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Christmas at Lydiard Park
Staff and volunteers have decked the hall with boughs of holly and Lydiard House is all dressed up for a Victorian Christmas. But how did an earlier branch of the family celebrate the festive...
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Christmas 1940
Our favourite Time Travelling farmers, Ruth Goodman and Peter Ginn returned to our screens last night to celebrate Christmas 1944. Swindonians celebrated a low key Christmas in 1940 following a year...
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The Sad Case of the Clockwinder's Ghost
The former Great Western Railway buildings in Swindon are rumoured to include a ghost or two, one of which apparently patrols the National Monuments Record building. A model of Victorian efficiency,...
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Christmas Charities
Anderson's HostelThe feast of St Thomas on December 21 was the day when alms for the poor were distributed within the parish.Traditionally caring for the poor and infirm in the past was achieved by...
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Driving home for Christmas ...
Driving home for Christmas is something many people will be doing this weekend. When Albert Rebbeck travelled home to Wiltshire in 1910 the journey had been 40 years in the planning.Albert Edward...
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Deacon Street
Following the initial building boom during the 1840-60s, development of New Swindon pretty much ground to a halt. The reason given was a slump in the railway industry in the 1870s and the scarcity of...
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Happy New Year 1941
In the final days of 1940, London received yet another pounding from the Luftwaffe during which serious damage was caused by fire in the historic City area.“An army of firemen, wardens, workers and...
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Devizes Road
Devizes Road was a late starter getting on the property ladder. Building along Nyweport Street had begun nearly five hundred years earlier while on Wood Street and High Street documents detailing 16th...
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Devizes Road - revisited
Devizes Road was a very different place by the beginning of the twentieth century, its hawthorn hedgerow long gone and the horse fair a thing of the past.With two breweries and sixteen pubs within...
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Sanford Street School
As 140 members of Swindon Borough Council’s children’s services department move out to Wat Tyler House, Sanford Street School building stands boarded up and vulnerable. It was quite a different story...
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Swindon Heritage revealed - well, almost
Next week sees the launch of Swindon Heritage, an exciting new local history magazine all about Swindon. Contrary to Ricky Gervais and popular opinion, Swindon has, in fact, plenty of fascinating...
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A Snowy Day in West Swindon
I've got snowy photographs of Lydiard House and Park and Radnor Street Cemetery so for a change I made my way through Shaw to Peatmoor and the lagoon.Deserted Roughmoor WayNarnia? Copse at...
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Commercial Road
What a difference a few months make. For too long the dark empty windows of number 66-68 have stared out forlornly at the busy traffic along Commercial Road, but not any more. Today the windows shine...
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Rockin' All Over the World
What's your idea of history? A least a hundred years ago, fifty? For all you rock and roll fans the 80s definitely rank up there now, I'm afraid.When Status Quo came to town in 1986 the Advertiser...
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Development at Princes Street
Work continues apace on Princes Street at the Union Square development despite the recent snow and rain. Have a look how things are progressing and catch up on the history of Princes Street on a...
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