We are extremely lucky to still have the Railway Village for in the 1960s it was under threat of demolition. Purchased by the local authority in 1966 the 19th century cottages were in a state of dilapidation and Swindon Borough Council was intent upon a project of demolition and rebuilding. However, a passionate local campaign and the vocal support of Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate, rescued the village and a programme of renovation began.
Without these properties it would be difficult to imagine the lives of the first railway families who arrived in Swindon in the 1840s. But today you can still walk down the backsies and hear the distant echoes of children at play; hear the tramp of the men’s feet as they return home after a hard day’s work and re-imagine life in Swindon 180 years ago.
If you lived in Taunton Street you rubbed shoulders with royalty – railway royalty, that is. The first members of the Mechanics’ Institute Council Mr Grandison and Mr Fairbairn, lived in Taunton Street. Even old Mr Hurst, the first locomotive driver on the GWR, lived there although that was much later. Read more …
Thomas Oswald Hogarth – Howzat!
Peter Bremner was born in Dundee in about 1819 and arrived in Swindon around 1848. It is possible the family came straight from France where a daughter Erskine was born in 1847. For more than 35 years Peter lived at 5 Taunton Street at the very centre of life in New Swindon. Read more …
Peter Bremner – railway pioneer
It is seldom we have the opportunity to read the words of an ordinary railwayman. When George House died in 1903 the Advertiser republished extracts from an earlier interview made in 1899. Read more …
George House – a Swindon veteran
Radnor Street Cemetery 