Plaum’s Pit

A family of Belgian immigrants have left their name to a beauty spot in Rodbourne Cheney, possibly one of Swindon’s best kept secrets.

Plaum family history facts can be gleaned from notes on the 1911 census made by George Jacques Plaum. At that time he was newly married and living with his wife Catherine and his younger brother Robert Maximilian (who he describes as ‘feeble minded since birth’) at 489 Ferndale Road. He also adds that his father was German and his mother English and that the family had been resident in England since 1888.

Matthias and Clara Plaum had lived in Antwerp, Belgium from at least 1882 to 1887 during which time their children Georgius, Ernestus, Joannes, Robert and Frederick were all born. As George states in 1911, they have been living in England since 1888, so it should be possible to find them on the 1891 census.

On August 25, 1893 Matthias was admitted to the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum in Devizes where he sadly died on October 13. Now it was up to Clara to support three sons, one of whom could not work due to a disability. In 1901 she was living at 21 Vilett Street where she worked as a dressmaker. George 19 is employed in the GWR. Younger brother Frederick 13 claims he is a Railway Fitter and Wheel Turner. It is more likely he was an apprentice or perhaps a labourer. Robert is 15 years old. Life was obviously very difficult for them. The Radnor Street Cemetery registers state that Clara died in 1908 at 29 Villett Street aged 48 years. She was buried on December 10 in a public grave with two other unrelated persons.

But by dint of hard work and an entrepreneurial talent, George Plaum and his family prospered.

He purchased the Rodbourne Bathing and Boating Pool in the 1920s with financial help from a Bristol business man. The lake, like the one in Queens Park, began life as a clay pit feeding Victorian Swindon’s rapacious brick making industry. Quarrying came to an end when diggers hit underground springs and forced the closure of the clay pit.

By the 1920s the lake offered a number of leisure activities including swimming, boating and fishing. An additional income was derived from entrance and camping fees and refreshments. Grass, grazing and allotment fees brought in £5 7s 6d in 1925.

Today Plaum’s Pit is home to Plaum’s Pit Angling Club who can be contacted via their website.

Plaum’s Pit swimming pontoon in the 1930s

Image of Plaum’s Pit published courtesy of Brian Robert Marshall