The Railway Cottage Museum Swindon

by | Sep 10, 2016 | Arts/Culture/Heritage, Community

The Railway Worker’s Cottage Museum

The railway worker’s cottage museum, in the heart of the GWR Railway Village Conservation area, is run by the Mechanics’ Institution Trust. There’s a link to their Facebook page here.

See also the GWR Park – site of the Children’s Fete – now home to a WWI memorial and a Mother Language memorial.

signage on the The Railway Cottage Museum

The MIT, thanks to volunteer help, open the cottage up on some summer weekends and other special occasions. They also run tours of the GWR Railway Village itself.

The Cottage is a unique example of what life was like living in Swindon’s Railway Village in the early 1900s.

The Railway Cottage Museum and The Platform
Cottage and The Platform

The MIT website: https://mechanics-trust.org.uk:

The Mechanics’ Institution Trust is a social enterprise which operates as a Building Preservation Trust and Development Trust.

In its heyday the Institution was more than the building itself; its reach into the community was extensive. The Medical Fund Society, Juvenile Fete, and branch reading rooms were a few examples of this impact.

This mirrors the Trust today. We are defined by more than this one building too with not only interests in wider heritage sites in the town but also in the communities in which they stand.

I have an enamel bread bin much like the one below at home. And OH how I remember mangling in the wash house on Mondays. And ponching and boiling the whites in the copper. Gosh that takes me back.

  • Kitchen/dining
  • The mangle
  • Kitchen
  • the loo
  • rear entrance
  • Chimneys
  • The children's room
  • The lodger's room

From the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-412000-183000/page/2

In 1840 three hundred cottages were   
 built by the G.W.R for their workers. 
 These cottages were tiny,with 2 or 3  
 small bedrooms,a livingroom and a     
 kitchen.There was no bathroom and the 
 toilet was outside in the yard. Food  
 could be cooked on an iron stove      
 heated with coal,and water had to be  
 fetched in.These cottages were        
 modernised in 1980 and provide limited
 but stylish accommodation.They are a  
 lasting memorial to the G.W.R.

From Swindon Web: http://www.swindonweb.com/index.asp?m=8&s=116&ss=341

‘Life in a Railway Village  

We explore what life is like living in the Swindon Railway Village 160 years after it was first built by the GWR
 
Stood in Emlyn Square enjoying the fabulous Brunel 200 celebrations I overheard a young girl who cannot have been more than four years old turn to her mother and ask: “Mummy, did they build all this just for the festival?” 
She was, I can only presume, referring to the model railway village itself; its remarkably symmetrical parallel grids of distinctive Victorian terraces that disappear into the distance, shielding any traces of modernity from those within.’
 

Swindon Civic Voice: http://www.swindoncivicvoice.org.uk

[jetpack_subscription_form]
Born Again Swindonian Logo

Sign up to receive awesome Swindon content in your inbox, every week.