The Railway Cottage Museum in the heart of the GWR Railway Village Conservation area, is run by Swindon Heritage Preservation 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.
SHP, 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.
Swindon Heritage Preservation
SHP is …..
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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.
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
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?”
