SWINDON

'Swindon' is a large town located in Wiltshire in the South West of England. The town is approximately midway between Bristol (64 km / 40 miles west) and Reading (64 km / 40 miles east) and about 130 km (81 miles) west of London. It is located on the main rail line between London and Bristol, and has one main train station which was refurbished in 2005. It was designated an 'Expanded' Town under the Town Development Act 1952, which led to a vast increase in the population of the town.^[1] It is in the borough of Swindon, which has been a unitary authority independent of Wiltshire since 1998. In the 2001 census the population of the Swindon urban area was 155,432, whilst around 184,000 lived in the Borough, which includes the satellite towns of Highworth and Wroughton.
A resident of Swindon is known as a Swindonian. Swindon's motto is ''"Salubritas et Industria"'' (Health and Industry).

History

Main articles: History of Swindon

The original saxon settlement of Swindon sat in a defensible position atop a limestone hill. It is referred to in the Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', a name believed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon words ''swine'' and ''dun'' meaning 'pig hill', or possibly 'Sweyn's hill' where Sweyn would be the local landlord. Swindon remained a small market town, mainly for barter trade, until the mid-1800s. This original market area of Swindon is located on top of the hill in central Swindon and is now known as Old Town.
The industrial revolution was responsible for an acceleration of Swindon's growth. It started with the construction of the Wilts and Berks Canal in 1810, and then the North Wilts canal in 1819. They brought trade to the area, and Swindon's population started to grow.

David Murray John tower, seen from Wescott Place

In 1840, Isambard Kingdom Brunel chose Swindon as the site for the large Swindon railway works he planned for the Great Western Railway. The works at a point of the line where locos would have to be changed. Eastwards towards London the line was gently graded, while westwards there was a steep descent towards Bath. Swindon was also at the junction of a proposed line to Gloucester.
Swindon Junction station opened in 1842 – and, until 1895, every passing train stopped here for at least 10 minutes to change locomotives. As a result, the station hosted the first recorded railway refreshment rooms. Divided according to class, Swindonians for a time were proud that even the current King and Queen of the time had partaken of refreshments there. There were three storeys to the station in 1842, with the refreshment rooms on the ground floor – and the upper floors housing the station hotel and lounge. That building was demolished in 1972 – and an office building with a one-storey modern station under it.
The town's railway works were finished in 1842. The GWR built a small railway 'village' to house some of its workers. People still live in the those houses and several of the buildings that made up the railway works remain, although many are vacant. The Steam Railway Museum now occupies part of the old works. In the village were the GWR Medical Fund Clinic at Park House and its Hospital, both on Faringdon Road and 1892's Health Centre in Milton Road – which housed clinics, a pharmacy, laundries, baths, Turkish baths and swimming pools – was almost opposite. From 1871, GWR workers each week had a small amount deducted from their pay and put into a fund – its doctors could prescribe them or their family members free medicines or send them for medical treatments. In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs – made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works – and nine years later opened its first dental surgery. In his first few months in post, the dentist removed more than 2,000 teeth,From the opening in 1892 of the Health Centre, a doctor could also prescribe a hair cut – and even a bath – for a patient. The cradle-to-grave extent of this service was later used as a blueprint for the NHS. ^[2]^[3]
The Mechanics Institute, formed in 1844, moved into a building, looking not unlike a church – although it included a covered market – on May 1 1855. The New Swindon Improvement Company, a co-operative had raised the funds for this cathedral to self-improvement – and paid the GWR £40 a year its new home for its commanding site at the heart of the railway village. It was a ground-breaking organisation – outside London ‐ that transformed the railway's workforce into some of the country's best-educated manual workers. ^[4] Some claim that GWR Chief Engineer Daniel Gooch had got the railway to fund the Institute^[5]
It offered the aspiring poor the UK's first lending library,^[6] and a range of improving lectures, access to a theatre and worthy pastimes from ambulance classes to xylophone lessons. A former Institute secretary formed the New Swindon Co-operative Society in 1853, which, after a schism in the society's membership, spawned the New Swindon Industrial Society that ran a retail business from a stall in the market at the Institute. The Institute also nurtured pioneering trades unionists and encouraged local democracy.^[7]
When TB hit the new town, the Mechanics’ Institute helped the industrial pioneers of north Wiltshire agree that the railway’s former employees should continue to receive medical attention from the doctors of GWR Medical Society Fund, which the Institute had played a role in establishing and funding.^[8]
Swindon’s ‘other’ railway, the Swindon, Marlborough & Andover Railway – merged with the Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway to form the Midland & South Western Junction Railway – which set out to join the London & Southwestern Railway with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at Cheltenham. The Swindon, Marlborough & Andover had planned to tunnel under the hill on which Swindon’s Old Town stands – but the money ran out and railway ran, instead, into Swindon Town station, off Devizes Road in the Old Town – later skirting the new town to the west, intersecting with the GWR at Rushey Platt and heading north for Cirencester, Cheltenham and the LMS, whose 'Midland Red' livery, the M&SWJR adopted. On 1 July 1923 the GWR took over the largely single-track M&SWJR and the line northwards from Swindon Town was diverted to Swindon Junction station, leaving the Old Town station with only the line south to Andover and Salisbury^[9] ^[10] ^[11] The last passenger trains on what had been the SM&A ran on 10 September 1961, 80 years after the railway's first stretch opened.
During the second half of the 19th century a new town (Swindon New Town) had grown around the mainline between London and Bristol – and the Old Town, the original market town merged with its newer neighbour at the bottom of the hill to become a single ''Swindon''.
During the first half of the of the 20th century the railway works was the town's largest employer – and one of the biggest in the country – employing more than 14,500 workers. The works' decline started in 1960, when it rolled out the ''Evening Star'', the last steam engine to be built in the UK^[12] The works lost its loco building role and took on rolling stock maintenance for British Rail. In the late-1970s much of the works closed, and the rest followed in 1986.
In 1997 Swindon was named the fastest growing settlement in the world.
In 2001 construction commenced on Priory Vale, the third and final instalment in Swindon's 'Northern Expansion' project, which began with Abbey Meads and continued at St Andrew's Ridge.
In 2002 the New Swindon Company was formed with the remit to regenerate the town centre,^[13] reflecting Swindon's regional status.

Geography and climate

A map of Swindon from 1933

The town itself has a total area of approximately 40 km² (25.33 mi²).
Swindon has a temperate climate, with roughly equal length winters and summers. The landscape is dominated the chalk hills of the Wiltshire Downs to the south and east.

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★

★ Nearby towns and cities: Calne, Chippenham, Wootton Bassett, Cirencester, Cricklade, Highworth, Marlborough

★ Nearby villages: Aldbourne, Blunsdon, Chiseldon, Hook, Lambourn, Liddington, Lydiard Millicent, Purton, Ramsbury, Wanborough, Wroughton

★ Nearby places of interest: Avebury, Barbury Castle, Crofton Pumping Station, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, Uffington White Horse

★ Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Swindon include - Coate Water, Great Quarry, Haydon Meadow, Okus Quarry and Old Town Railway Cutting.

Government

A Swindon-built locomotive (Hagley Hall) on display in the eating area of the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, Swindon.

The local council was created in 1974 as the Borough of Thamesdown, out of Swindon Borough and Highworth Rural Councils, but renamed in 1997 because the Borough of Swindon) has a much larger area as it encompasses villages and land. The borough became a unitary authority on 1 April 1998, following a review by Local Government Commission for England. The town is therefore no longer under the auspices of Wiltshire County Council.
The executive comprises a leader (Cllr Rod Bluh), and a cabinet made up from the Conservative Group. The makeup of the council is Conservative 43 councillors, Labour 12, Liberal Democrat 3 and 1 (previously Labour) independent.
Swindon is represented in the national parliament by two MPs. Anne Snelgrove (Labour) was elected for the South Swindon seat in 2005, and Michael Wills, also Labour, has represented North Swindon since 1997. Prior to 1997, there was a single seat for Swindon, although a lot of what is now in Swindon was then in the Devizes seat.

Demographics

At the census of 2001, there were 180,051 people and 75,154 occupied houses in the Swindon Unitary Authority.^[14] The average household size was 2.38 people. The population density was 780/km² (2020.19/mi²). 20.96% of the population were 0 to 15 years old, 72.80% were 16 to 74 years old, and the remaining 6.24% were 75 years old or over. For every 100 females there were 98.97 males.
Approximately 300,000 people live within 20 minutes of Swindon town centre.

The Wilts and Berks Canal near Rushey Platt, Swindon.

The ethnic make-up of the town was 95.2% white, 1.3% Indian, and 3.5% other. Of the population, 92.4% were born in the UK, 2.7% in the EU, and 4.9% elsewhere in the world. More people have joined the Hare Krishna movement in Swindon than in any other English town.
Swindon is considered to be an almost exact microcosm of the whole United Kingdom in its demographic make-up, to the extent that it has been used for market research purposes and trials of new products and services. One example was the ill-fated Mondex electronic money.
It has been forecast that there will be a 70,000 (38.9%) increase in Swindon's population by 2026; from the current 180,000, to 250,000.^[15]
In May 2007, 65.3% of households in Swindon had broadband Internet access, the highest in the UK – and up 5.5% from June 2006.^[16]
A 2007 report by Endsleigh Insurance concluded that the town was the second safest place to live in the UK, beaten only by Guildford in Surrey.^[17] This was based on the number of insurance claims made in the region and the total incidences of burglaries and accidents reported. Endsleigh commented that "Swindon is a great example of where local authorities, working hand in hand with the community, have played a key role in bringing down crime"
After the end of World War II a significant – unspecified – number of Polish refugees were put up temporarily in barracks at the Fairford RAF base about 25 km (roughly 15 miles) from Swindon. In about 1950, some of them settled in Scotland and others in Swindon^[18] rather than stay in the barracks or hostels they were offered.^[19] The 2001 UK Census found that most of the Polish-born people had stayed or returned after serving with British forces during World War II. Swindon and Nottingham were parts of this settlement.^[20] Data from that census showed that 566 Swindonians were Poland-born. ^[21] Notes to those data read: ‘The Polish Resettlement Act of 1947, which was designed to provide help and support to people who wished to settle here, covered about 190,000 people...at the time Britain did not recognise many of the professional [qualifications] gained overseas...[but] many did find work after the war; some went down the mines, some worked on the land or in steel works. Housing was more of a problem and many Poles were forced to live in barracks previously used for POWs...The first generation took pains to ensure that their children grew up with a strong sense of Polish identity.’ In 2004, NHS planners devising services for senior citizens estimated that 5 percent of Swindon’s population were not ‘ethnically British’^[22] and most of those were culturally Polish. The town’s Polish ex-servicemen’s club, which had also run a football team for 40 years closed in 2007. Barman Jerzy Trojan, 56, blamed the decline of both club and team on the children and grandchildren of the original refugees losing their Polish identity.^[23]

Business

Major employers include the Honda car production plant at South Marston, BMW/Mini in Stratton, mobile phone company Motorola, Dolby Labs and retailer W H Smith which has its distribution centre and headquarters in Swindon. The computer company Intel has its European head office on the south side of the town and Lucent Technologies head office is on the west side. Insurance and financial services companies such as Nationwide Building Society and Zurich Financial Services, and pharmaceutical companies such as Canada's Patheon and the US-based Cardinal Health's have their UK divisions headquartered in the town. Several of the UK's Science Research Councils have their head offices in Polaris House, near the rail station. Swindon is also the location of two Tyco Electronics (a division of Tyco International) sites, based in Dorcan and Cheney Manor. The household products division of consumer goods supplier Reckitt Benckiser – best known for dishwasher detergents, disinfectants and cold remedies^[24] – has its headquarters in Swindon.

Transport

The Magic Roundabout

Main articles: Transport in Swindon

Lying on the junction of two Roman roads, the town has developed over the centuries with the assistance of the Great Western Railway and the Canals into a transport hub. It has two junctions (15 and 16) onto the M4 motorway and lies on the GWR mainline to London.
Swindon has two bus operators - Thamesdown and Stagecoach. The local council acknowledges the need for more car parking as part of its vision for 2010.^[25]
The town is notable for its roundabouts, to the extent of selling yearly calendars featuring a different roundabout for each month.^[26] The best known roundabout is the 'Magic Roundabout' at the junction of Drove Road, Queens Drive and Fleming Way near the County Ground.
The official name of this roundabout used to be County Islands, although hardly anyone other than officials called it by this name. This name was changed in the late 1990s to match its popular name. It is the subject of a pop song by local band XTC.

Tourism and recreation

McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, a shopping complex built within the disused Swindon railway engine works.

★ The Brunel Centre and the Parade are shopping areas in the town centre, built along the site of the filled-in Wilts and Berks Canal.

★ Retail parks include Greenbridge, West Swindon Shopping Centre, Stratton and the Orbital Shopping Park.

★ The Steam Railway Museum shows Swindon's part in the history of the Great Western Railway.

★ McArthur Glen Designer Outlet is an indoor shopping mall for reduced price designer goods, using the buildings of the disused railway engine works. The Outlet is adjacent to the Steam Museum.

★ The Link Centre and the Oasis are leisure centres.

★ Broome Manor Golf Complex is a golf course set against the backdrop of the Marlborough Downs.

★ Public parks include Lydiard Country Park, Stanton Park, Barbury Castle, Queens Park and Coate Water.

★ Shaw Community Forest is being developed on the site of a former landfill site in West Swindon.

★ The National Monuments Record Centre is in Swindon, the home of English Heritage.

★ The Wyvern theatre is managed by Hetherington Seeling Theatres Ltd. for the council. It closed for £1.3 million remedial work carried out by Swindon Council since September 2006 after the discovery of asbestos in what was built in 1971 as a municipal prestige project.^[27] It is scheduled to re-open on 25 September 2007 with a production of ''The Business Of Murder'', with ''Grange Hill'' and ''EastEnders'' star Todd Carty.^[28] The revamped theatre is to invite the public in for a free visit from 21 September to 23 September 2007.

★ Swindon hosts an annual mela in the Town Gardens, the event attracts up to 10,000 visitors every year.^[29]

Media

Print

Swindon has a daily evening newspaper, the ''Swindon Advertiser'', with sales of 21,856 per week. Other newspapers circulating in the area include Bristol's daily ''Western Daily Press'' and the ''Adver'''s weekly, the ''Gazette and Herald''. There are numerous other local magazines, including the ''Swindon Star'', ''Stratton Outlook'', ''Swindon Link'' magazine, ''Frequency'', an arts and cultural magazine, and the ''Swindon Business News''.

Radio

Local Radio stations broadcasting to the town include Wiltshire's GWR FM and the more locally-focused Brunel FM in the commercial sector, with BBC Radio Swindon as a publicly funded alternative. An AM station, Classic Gold 936/1161 exists as well, but only includes local programming in the late afternoon.

Television

Between 1973 and June 2000 Swindon had its own cable television channel. At first, it was ''Swindon Viewpoint'' – a community television project run mainly by enthusiasts from the the basement of a Radio Rentals branch on Victoria Road – and later rebranded as the more commercial Swindon's Local Channel, which included pay-per-view films.^[30] NTL (later Virgin Media) took over the the channel's parent company, ComTel, and pulled the plug on the station permanently.
Regional news programmes covering Swindon include ''Thames Valley Tonight'' and ''The West Tonight'' from regional ITV1 stations and ''South Today (Oxford)'' and ''Points West'' from BBC One's regional variants.

Education

In addition to numerous primary and secondary schools, Swindon is home to two separate colleges - New College and Swindon College who both provide higher education to the town. The "University of Bath in Swindon" was established in 2000, with its Oakfield Campus in Walcot, East Swindon.

Museums and cultural institutions

★ Museum of Computing Oakfield Campus, University of Bath in Swindon, Marlowe Avenue.

★ National Museum of Science & Industry, Wroughton

★ Railway Village Museum

★ Richard Jefferies Museum is dedicated to the memory of one of England's most individual writers on nature and the countryside.

★ Steam Railway Museum

★ Swindon Arts Centre is a theatre and cinema venue, gallery, and meeting place for arts-related activities.

★ Wyvern Theatre is the town's principal stage venue

★ Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

Sport

★ Swindon Robins - Speedway team competing in the Elite League.

★ Swindon Town F.C. - Football team playing in Football League One at the County Ground.

★ Swindon Supermarine F.C. - Football team playing in Southern League Premier Division.

★ Swindon Wildcats - Ice hockey team, who play at the Link Centre.

★ Swindon RFC - Amateur Rugby Union Club based in Swindon.

★ [1] - Swindon Road Club, Cycling Club based in Swindon.

Twin towns

Swindon is twinned with -

★ Salzgitter, Germany (1975)^[31]

★ Ocotal, Nicaragua (1990)^[32]

★ Toruń, Poland (2006)

★ Chattanooga, USA (2006)^[33]

Swindon in popular culture

Books set in Swindon include ''The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'' by Mark Haddon, the ''Thursday Next'' novels by Jasper Fforde, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, Sherlock Holmes, who ate lunch in the town in the novel ''The Boscombe Valley Mystery''.
Robert Goddard's ''Into the Blue'', ''Out of the Sun'' and most recently "Never Go Back" all feature the central character of Harry Barnett from Swindon, and all three novels start in the town. The TV detective series ''A Touch of Frost'' starring David Jason is often set in or around Swindon (called "Denton" in the series) and early episodes feature briefings of the detective team in front of recognisable maps of the Swindon area.
The British television comedy series ''The Office'' contains many references to Swindon, as Swindon was home to a newly absorbed part of Wernham-Hogg's Slough office after significant downsizing.
The town was also referred to heavily in a 1998 episode of The Comic Strip titled "Four Men in a Car" in which Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmundson et al attempt to get to Swindon for a sales conference. and featured Mayall's frequent lament "I just want to get to Swindon".
The British television series ''Red Dwarf'' also makes a reference to the town in series seven, in the episode Epideme. The character Dave Lister dies and is brought back from the dead. Upon being asked what death was like, he replies "Have you ever been to Swindon?"
The father of The Nice Family (a caricature of a strictly disciplined, dull family) in Channel 4's "Absolutely" exclaims "By Swindon, this is an inspiring tale!" during a particularly boring presentation by a travelling salesman.

James Bond

★ James Bond author Ian Fleming is buried in the Borough at Sevenhampton.

★ Two James Bond films have used Swindon for scenes.^[34]

★
★ The former Renault building in West Swindon was used in ''A View to a Kill'' (released 1985).^[35]

★
★ The futuristic Motorola production plant in Abbey Meads was used for a setting of a Turkish Oil refinery in ''The World Is Not Enough'' (released 1999).

Swindon references in music

★ The rock band XTC, the notable rock-pop group formed in 1977, are from Swindon. Also members of related act Shriekback. XTC's co-founder guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and graphic artist Andy Partridge still lives in the town.

★ Noel Gallagher, the lead singer of the rock band Oasis chose the name of his band after visiting Swindon's Oasis swimming pool and leisure centre in 1993, while working as a roadie for a band, Inspiral Carpets, which had been performing at the centre).

★ Singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock's song ''Ride'' refers to Swindon.

★ A track on Venetian Snares' album ''Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms'' is named Swindon.

★ Spinal Tap's ''Diva Fever'' refers to Swindon – as well as London and Waterloo.

★ Supertramp keyboard player and singer Rick Davies comes from Swindon. The sleeve art for ''Breakfast in America'' shows the band's members in an American diner reading their hometowns' newspapers, Davies is reading Swindon's ''Evening Advertiser'' (since renamed as the Swindon Advertiser).

★ Moody Blues' vocalist, lead guitarist and songwriter Justin Hayward is from Swindon. He wrote their signature song ''Nights in White Satin''.

★ Electronic music outfit Meat Beat Manifesto, formed in Swindon in 1987, is considered the dance music world's 'best-kept secret', providing the musical starting blocks for young samplists in the know – including The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Future Sound of London), and helping to form new musical styles, such as Big Beat and Jungle,

★ 1970s novelty act The Barron Knights released ''The Swindon Cowboy'' as the B-side of their 1980 single ''Never Mind the Presents''. The song – written after the band played a gig in town – gently mocks the Swindon accent.

Notable Swindonians

References

External links

★ SwindonWeb Award-winning website dedicated to Swindon

★ Swindon.gov.uk Official Borough Council website

★ BBC Wiltshire BBC site for Wiltshire & Swindon (includes Historic Swindon section)

★ Swindon Link Magazine For North and West Swindon

★ Swindon Live Happening now in Swindon

★ Priory Vale Community website for this area of North Swindon

★ Visit Swindon Tourism website

★ New Swindon Company regeneration plans for the town centre

★ Swindon Forum

★ Frequency Magazine the online presence of Swindon's Arts and Cultural Magazine

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