BBC – Wiltshire – History – link to some archive films

I saw the link to all these films on Twitter so thought it would be good to share. Not I’ve been able to see any of them myself. I’m an iMac user and I appear not to have the correct plug-in. No comment required! So, to those of you who DO have the requisites plug-ins. Enjoy!

BBC – Wiltshire – History.

Remeber too that Swindon Viewpoint is a good resource for archive film and Swindon local for their Flckr collection.

The Swindon collection

I’ve given mention before to the amazing resource and service that is the Swindon Collection in ‘Digital archives R us’. But I figured it was time to give another, more detailed ‘shout out’ about them.

As it says on their section of the Swindon Borough Council website:

The Swindon Collection: The Swindon Collection of local studies and family history material can be found on the second floor of the Central Library. Staff will be happy to help you begin your search. Additionally, one Monday a month, an archivist from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre will be available to advise researchers. Please check with Swindon collection staff for future dates.

But there’s more.  The Swindon local collection is the home of the Swindon photostream collection on Flickr:

“In collaboration with the people of Swindon and local history enthusiasts, Swindon Central Library has produced a substantial online library of historical photographs – on the Internet photograph repository, Flickr.

The Swindon Collection Photostream is an ongoing project to publish the history of the Borough of Swindon in photographs.

The collection already includes many thousands of fascinating images – drawn from the library’s collection, the private collections of local residents and enthusiasts, and historical material from Swindon’s commercial institutions of the past and present.”

There are links to various areas of this photostream scattered throughout this blog. It truly is an amazing resource and important record of every aspect of Swindon’s history – something that Swindon should be very proud of.

Just some of the other resources that the Swindon collection can offer are:

• Complete GRO index of Births, Marriages & Deaths, for the whole of England and Wales (1837-1999).
• GRO Overseas index.
• International Genealogical Index (The LDS or Mormon Index).
• Census records (1841-1901) with surname and street indexes where available.
• Parish registers, bishops transcripts and surname transcriptions where available (from 1538).
• Free access to Find My Past Community Edition.
• All available parish magazines, newsletters and journals, including staff magazines for the Great Western Railway, Wills Tobacco, Garrards and Vickers.

The rest can be found here, on the SBC website. And you can, of course, also find them on Facebook.

The value of everyday photos | Raking the moon

The value of everyday photos | Raking the moon

I’m sharing this post from Claire Maycock’s lovely blog mostly because I think it’s just so nice. And also because there’s something very Pythonesque  and I think, very, very British about the man with the big white pointer. And it just makes me smile.  Were it a film I can hear the Received Pronunciation voiceover we all know and love from the Pathe newsreels and those splendid public announcement films that used to be on TV in my younger (very) days.

But importantly, as Claire points out on her post, without such images as these, much minutiae of historical detail would have been lost. As in fact these pictures so very nearly were, but fortuitously they were rescued from a skip and now form part of the ever-growing, most marvellous Swindon Collection.

Remembering the days of our glorious murals (From Swindon Advertiser)

Tuesday 17th September

Remembering the days of our glorious murals (From Swindon Advertiser).

Here’s a lovely article by Barry Leighton in today’s Swindon Advertiser reminiscing about the glory days of Swindon’s murals. I’ve written about Ken White myself on this blog.

As Barry notes in his article, many of these wonderful artworks are now lost – something of a tragedy really. To say the least. Luckily many of them are recorded one way or another by Swindon Local Flickr collection and Swindon Viewpoint.

Can we not get Ken busy with his paintbrushes again? I can think of a few walls around the town that would be much improved with a ‘muriel’.

Farming today – or at any rate yesterday

30th August 2013

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a busy university student needs guest bloggers to keep the blogging ball rolling.  So I’m really delighted to introduce my second guest writer, Frances Bevan. Whilst my knowledge of Swindon, is at best, superficial – though my enthusiasm for the town is anything but –  the same cannot be said of Frances.   As she explains herself, she is the chief writer of the splendid Swindon Heritage magazine. I was dead impressed when I read the summer issue I can tell you. Frances also pens a number of blogs that give detailed accounts of various aspects of Swindon’s rich history – just one of which is ‘Good Gentlewoman’ in which you can read about the St John ladies of Lydiard Park.

Anyway, I think you’ll agree that Frances’ article gives a lovely insight into some of the buildings we do still have round and about us.

“As chief writer and co-founder of Swindon Heritage, it’s a pleasure to be invited to write a guest post for Angela’s Born Again Swindonian blog, because like her, I love living in Swindon.

Yes, I know previous generations of councillors and town planners have a lot to answer for, but although some beautiful properties have sadly gone, there are still a number of interesting and historic ones around and I’m going to raise a glass to one or two of them in this post.

With a wealth of engineering expertise to celebrate, in the latest edition of Swindon Heritage we turn our attention to a much older period of the town’s history when agriculture reigned. Clive Carter of the Wiltshire Buildings Record Farmsteads Project has identified no fewer than 81 farms, and many of the farmhouses survive today, as private homes, community centres and yes, you’ve guessed it – pubs.

In my neck of the West Swindon woods we have several such properties. Today Lower Shaw Farm offers weekend breaks, events and courses and is home to the prestigious Swindon Festival of Literature. But it was once farmed by several generations of the wealthy Tuckey family and records exist dating back to the 17^th century.

Now known as Brookhouse Farm and part of the Hungry Horse chain of pubs and restaurants, Brook Farm was once part of the Lydiard Park estate. Margaret Beauchamp (recently portrayed by Frances Tomelty in the BBC series The White Queen) brought the estate to the St John family by her marriage to Oliver St John in about 1425. The present Victorian farmhouse is much altered, but the link with Swindon’s heritage remains.

Privately owned Wick Farmhouse, another former St John property, nestles at the centre of a housing estate, believed to be close to the site of a lost medieval village.

Wick farm, Swindon

In 1881 the 74 acre Upper Shaw Farm with fields named Martin’s Hill and Griffins, was farmed by William Plummer aged 76 and his three sisters, Amelia 78 and Emma and Hannah who were both in their 60s. Today it’s home to the Hop, Skip and Jump project.

Of course there won’t be any surviving farmhouses in sprawling North Swindon, I hear you say, well you could be in for a surprise.

And if you haven’t seen a copy of Swindon Heritage yet, the Autumn edition will be on sale at various town outlets from Saturday, August 31. For a list of stockists visit our website on www.swindonheritage.com. “

Manor Farm, Swindon

stained glass window Wick farm, West Swindon

NB: Wick Farm – Interestingly when I was out doing the West Swindon sculpture walk I came across a lovely stained glass window in the side of what was clearly a barn conversion. And what do you know? It belongs to Wick Farm – but of course I had no idea of that then.  You can read about a Victorian murder mystery related to Wick Farm on the wonderful ‘Swindon in the Past Lane’ blog.  Here’s an appetizer: “During the 19th century Wick Farm was home to Jonas Clarke senior for over 26 years. The Clarke family were pretty unconventional by Victorian social conventions. Although married in his late twenties, Jonas soon began an alliance with a servant girl called Alice Pinnell. Thirty years and seven children later they eventually married at St. Mary’s Church, Lydiard Tregoze in 1853, after the death of Jonas’ first wife.”

And here’s a link to a picture of Manor Farm in the Swindon Flckr collection.

Public art of the bovine variety: the GWH cow

Cow sculpture at Great Western Hospital

Whenever I see this cow sculpture it makes me smile and think of one of my favourite Ogden Nash poems:

‘Two cows, mildly mooing:

No bull; nothing doing’

Which, if you think about it, is a masterclass in understatement.

As is:

‘The cow is of the bovine ilk;

One end is moo, the other milk’

Anyway, I just like that it’s there. Though why a cow exactly? Any particular reason for that, do we know?

19/07/2013: UPDATE: well, while we might not  know why exactly it’s a cow rather than any other animal we do now know, thanks to a comment on the blog,  this: It used to be at PMH, in an internal courtyard/garden as I remember, and was moved from there when GWH opened. Don’t remember exactly how long it had been there, only that it appeared some time between 1983 and 1990 (dates I worked at PMH).

And the commentor has kindly provided a link to the Swindon flicker collection showing the cow in its original home: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/6835426477/

and also: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/6835426487/in/photostream/

Thank you so much for that. Brilliant!

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