Yesterday I paid my first visit to Christ Church, the lady on the hill, in Swindon’s Old Town for the occasion of the Autumn fair. It was a really smashing event. And, I have to admit, a notch or two up from the autumn/summer/Christmas fairs I used to attend back in little old Whitwell when my daughter was small.
Christ Church Old Town Swindon
The stalls and the activities were spread in and around the church and its community centre. I had a lovely hour or two chatting to some great people from various community groups. Friends of Lydiard Park, the Swindon Society and the bunnies from the Wilts and Berks Canal trust.
A very confident young lad, who will surely go far, persuaded me to take him on in a five-penalty shoot out. Much to my surprise and no doubt his, I managed to beat him! David Beckham? Who’s he?
As I strolled round it struck me how wonderful it was to see community centre, church and the grounds opened up with stalls and displays.
Libraries have now recognised the need to have facilities and events that engage current readers and the readers of the future. And yesterday’s autumn fair was a great example of the church opened up to the community.
George Gilbert Scott
It’s a lovely church with some stunning stained glass windows in it.
Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in Midlands Decorated Style. He also designed St Mark’s church – and more famously – St Pancras in London.
Opened in 1851, Christ Church replaced the old medieval church of Holy Rood. Located on The Lawn. That church was, by the 1850s, woefully inadequate for Swindon’s growing population. There’s lots more information about Christ church in the visitor’s guide leaflet I picked up in there.
John Betjeman
Like several things/places in Swindon and its environs, John Betjeman celebrated the church. In ‘On hearing the full peal of ten bells from Christ Church, Swindon’, Wilts he said:
“Your peal of ten ring over then this town, Ring on my men nor ever ring them down…” and “Oh still white headstones on these fields of sound, Hear you the wedding joy-bells wheeling round?”
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
Pablo Picasso
An analogy
Well listeners, if we stretch that analogy a little further and consider the wealth of art – and even architecture -of all kinds that we have here in Swindon we can find ourselves washing the dust off our souls in a veritable ocean of creativity. Much of which has featured at various times on Born again Swindonian.
I popped in to Artsite today too and met Lynette Thomas who works with mosaics. I ended up buying a piece of her work and having a good old natter with the lovely people in Artsite. Lynette has created a wonderful mosaic homage to the Magic Roundabout a couple of pictures of which are in the gallery below. I like it. I want it. Don’t give me any other… I find myself drawn to mosaics.
Earlier this year I bought a mosaic piece from another of the artists at Artsite which now has pride of place in my garden. Maybe I was a Roman in a past life? Anyway…
Paul Sullivan & S.Carr/T.HumphriesMagic roundabout mosaicTim CarrollDavid BentBowie!
David Bent
This year too I’ve learnt of the existence of David Bent about whom I really need a blog post. DONE! Missing still is Tim Carroll. That needs to be addressed – I’ll get there. As well as the small piece up above I’m the proud owner of one his 100 views of Swindon. I LOVE them all. I like a lot of his work in general.
And of course there’s the small but perfectly formed Museum and Art gallery in Old Town with its terrific art collection. So who needs the Guggenheim?
A few months or so ago art work by Caroline Day started appearing on my Facebook timeline. I started sharing it on the Facebook page for Born again Swindonian – an act that resulted in a lovely guest blog post from Caroline in which she explained all about the work of the Old Town Garden’s art work.
So today it was a great pleasure to finally get to meet Caroline, up in the town gardens and to see some of her lovely works first-hand as part of the Old Town Garden’s Little Big festival and Swindon Open Studios art event. I like her work very much. Many of her prints have interesting juxtapositions of photographs of the band stand and even her children set against drawings of flowers.
Plein Air artists
Two artists I also had the pleasure to meet today were Terry Humphries and Susan M Carr. Susan is, amongst other things, a ‘Plein Air’ artist. A little bit of internet research reveals that ‘En plein air’ is a French expression meaning ‘in the open air’. It’s used particularly to describe the act of painting outdoors. “Artists have long painted outdoors.But in the mid-19th century working in natural light became increasingly important to multiple schools of art.
The Barbizon school of France was of particular influence on the Realists. They focused their work on everyday subjects versus prominent figures. These Realists inspired the Impressionists, whose style included visible brush strokes, ordinary subject matter, and an emphasis on light in its changing qualities.
The popularity of painting en plein air increased in the 1870s with the introduction of paint in tubes.That replaced the task of grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil. It was also during this period that the “Box Easle “, typically known as the French Box Easel, was invented. This development increased the ease and portability of art supplies. In turn that made treks into the forest and up the hillsides less intimidating and more appealing to those looking to paint new landscapes.”
Going around Swindon’s Roundabouts Hello listeners. Here we have the second instalment of posts featuring a few of Swindon’s roundabouts. And the reasoning behind their names.
The first post –Round and Round, examined roundabouts related, by dint of name and location, to some of Swindon’s industry.
This time around it’s pubs. With coaching inns in days gone by often sited on road junctions, a number of Swindon’s pubs sit on or near to roundabouts. And that gives the planners a convenient handle for said roundabout.
So yesterday, on a somewhat dreek and dismal day, @Swindondriver, Swindon bear, Penny penguin and myself set out on a second EXPOTITION to check them out.
Swindon bear and Penny Penguin go on a road trip.
The Rat Trap
First stop on the road trip was the Rat Trap, an Arkell’s pub in Stratton St Margaret. This hostelry – or maybe it should be HOSTILERY – has an interesting little story.
Originally called the ‘Speed the Plough‘ (generally shortened to The Plough) the landlady in days of yore, one Fanny Stroud, devised a foolproof method of making her customers settle their bills: quite simply she locked then in the pub until they coughed up. It wasn’t long before the locals nicknamed the pub the Rat Trap – it becoming so interchangeable with its official name that, in 1875, court records referred to both.
Arkell’s bought the pub in 1899 and kept its official name, The Plough, until 1974. However, following refurbishment and the adding of an extension, Arkell’s endorsed the nickname re-naming it The Rat Trap. Echoing this story, the pub’s interior features a carpet with a Pied Piper motif whilst on the outside roof there is a plough and the pub sign depicts the landlady taking money from her customers. I wonder if the Boomtown Rats had heard this story….?https://www.arkells.com/pub/the-rat-trap-stratton-st-margaret.htm
The Crown Inn – Stratton
Next up on our agenda was the Crown Inn, again in Stratton. A 19th century coaching in, the Crown Inn has, as it says on their website, come full circle in returning to its former function as an actual residential inn even if there’s no longer accommodation for horses. Furthermore: “An inn has stood at the junction of Highworth Road and Ermin Street for the best part of 250 years – and possibly much longer, making the site of The Crown an important one indeed to the local historian.
The original building got sold for £60 in 1767 when it bore the name The Sow and Piggs. It became the Crown in 1792 – ironically the same year that King Louis XVI was losing his crown – not to mention his head – in France.
Forty years later a new building replaced the old one, complete with the impressive arch, pretty courtyard and stable block. All tyypical of coaching inns at this time and all of you can see today. Arkells’s bought the building in 1868 and – as with many of the pubs it has brought – proved the stabilising element in the story.”
Still in Stratton
Now we go to The White Hart, still in Stratton….and another Arkell’s pub. As Arkell’s do with all their pubs it seems, they’ve got some history and background to this hostelry on their website: ‘As a change from railway history roots, the original White Hart owed its existence to the Wilts and Berks canal which once ran nearby.’
It goes on: ‘Coal merchant William Seymour was the owner by 1841 and his family kept it for many years. In those days The White Hart stood on the other side of the current Oxford Road. It sold beer produced in the brewhouse on the opposite side of the road.
Brewing ceased when Arkell’s bought the freehold of the pub (and an adjoining orchard) in 1878 for the princely sum of £925. The original building remained in use for another 59 years before it was demolished to make way for another pub with the same name. Completed in 1938, the current pub is a much larger building than its predecessor … “
It seems rather a pity that there is no White Hart emblem anywhere on the pub.
And finally
The final place on the pub crawl, sorry I mean cultured tour of Swindon’s hostelry and roundabout history, was The Moonrakers – another Arkell’s pub, this one on Cricklade Road, with a roundabout named after it.
As with all these pubs/roundabouts there’s an interesting tale behind it. The legend of the Wiltshire moonrakers is well known round these parts. Swindon Web have an excellent article all about it so to get the full story go there. But in essence the story goes likes this:
‘A pair of Wiltshiremen, engaged in smuggling brandy, hid a barrel of the contraband from the excisemen in a nearby pond. When they return at some later time, in the dark, they are caught in the act of raking the barrel back to land. They immediately claim that they are trying to rake cheese – the reflection of the moon – from the pond. And the excisemen, amused by the apparently simple-minded rustics, leave them to it.’
The moral of the tale being of course that Wiltshire folk are not as daft as some would believe.
I don’t get to that side of town overly much. And, since I was last there, the parade of shops across the road has been piffed up somewhat. The frontage in front of the shops now features some rather wonderful giant flowerpots. They immediately brought a certain ancient children’s TV show to mind. little weeeeeeed …. flob a dob …. There are also some benches, funky asymmetric patches of lawn and wooden posts that turned out to be a homage to the moonrakers legend. Fab stuff! I loved it.
So all in all we had an interesting afternoon of urban discovery, local history, good beer and lousy coffee.
Swindon bear & Penny penguin sample the offerings in the Moonrakers.
Swindon, as we know, is famous – even infamous – for its roundabouts. Of course there’s the grand-daddy of them all, the Magic Roundabout. Such a rich vein of material is that particular jewel in Swindon’s roundabout crown that it has its own category on the blog.
But as any driver will tell you there are sooooo many more roundabouts in Swindon. Whilst they can’t all be as exciting/terrifying/world-famous as THE roundabout many of them are, nevertheless, quite interesting – if only by dint of what they are associated with and named for.
With this in mind, myself and Jess Robinson, aka @Swindondriver on Twitter, recently went out – in manner of Winne-the-Pooh – on an EXPOTITION to photograph some of them and dig out a little of the history behind their names.
When we started to look at this idea in more detail it became clear that, due to the rather large number of roundabouts in Swindon, we’d have to break them down into sets of some kind.
So if you’re sitting comfortably listeners – then I’ll begin – with roundabouts associated with Swindon’s industry.
But where to begin?
After some discussion we figured the most interesting ones to focus on for the purposes of this particular post were the Supermarine, Vickers, Deloro and Renault roundabouts. Why? Because all of them named for industries/organizations that were once close by to the location of the roundabouts.
Taking flight
I only learned relatively recently of Swindon’s connections with the aviation industry. And that’s where Supermarine and Vickers came in.
Around 1912 the first aeroplane, a Bleriot monoplane, visited Swindon. Then, not so many years later, Swindonians found themselves thrust into the midst of both aviation industry and history when – in 1938 – South Marston was chosen as a shadow site* due to its good communication links and proximity to the skilled workforce of the Swindon’s GWR works. *As Swindon Web explain in one of their articles on the subject, shadow sites were sites intended to provide back-up to the leading aircraft factories in the event of war-time attack.
As the jolly useful Swindon Webwebsite further describes, at length the factory passed to Supermarine. The South Marston site became a shadow site of the Castle Bromwich site in the Midlands and the original Supermarine factory in Southampton.
Little remains of that factory. It’s now an industrial estate and in part of the massive Honda plant there are echoes. The sports club that was once part of Vickers still retains the name.
In addition of course, there’s the Supermarine roundabout and further homage to the Spitfire is paid in the industrial estate in the area.
Deloro Stellite (Kennametal) is a specialist engineering firm – no longer manufacturing in its Swindon factory and now a distribution centre but again the name lives on in the roundabout sign.
Vickers
So where does the name Vickers fit with all this you may ask?
Well, back to our old friend Swindon Web again for enlightenment. It seems that, by the 1950s, the South Marston factory was part of the Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd, Supermarine Division.
There’s much more information on their article about what came off the production line, in particular about the Supermarine Swift. But the link between that and the model of Concorde you see in the pictures below is that, through the 1970s and 1980s, the South Marston site produced components for a range of Vickers products – and for Concorde. Supersonic Swindon eh? Hence the model you see in the pictures below. It would be nice though if someone gave it a wash and brush up… I do really miss Concorde coming over…
Having around Supermarine and Vickers, had coffee in the Spitfire cafe, stopped for a peek at the nearby portrait bench on the South Marston cycle path, one of the figures on which is a Spitfire pilot, and chuckled at the sign for Equity Trading Centre which just looks so very, very random … etc….. we headed off to the other side of town to a have a look at the Spectrum Building. It’s still indicated as Renault on the roundabout sign and indeed I still refer to it as the Renault building – never the Spectrum building.
But whatever you want to call it, this Norman Fostor designed and now listed building, is I think, fabulous. It’s certainly iconic anyway.
The most random and curious sign for an industrial estate ever – Equity Trading Estate
Ralph Bates – Swindon born writer and Spanish Civil War Chronicler
1899: 2000
Ralph Bates 1899-2000
Ralph Bates Swindon Writer Some time ago, in the tourist information centre in Bristol, I saw an information sheet on a literary trail round the city. And that got me thinking that Swindon could surely have such a thing here what withRichard Jefferiesand Alfred Williams. No sooner had I had this thought than what should appear on my social media stream than something publicizing a forthcoming talk at (Museum and Art Swindon)Museum and Art Galleryabout Ralph Bates Swindon writer. No – I’d not heard of him either. And in his day he was rated as better than Hemingway. Who knew?
As it happened I couldn’t attend the Ralph Bates event but I was fortunate enough to know someone, a lovely lady by the name of Monica Timms, who could. And she wrote about the evening and the man it concerned.
A fascinating story not well told in Swindon
I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a fascinating story. As Monica says, here was a writer of international stature who is criminally unrecognised in the town of his birth.
About Ralph Bates Civil War Chronicler
Ralph Bates entered this world in Morse Street in Swindon in 1899. On leaving school, Bates entered an apprenticeship in the repair yards of the Great Western Railway as a fitter, turner and erector. In 1916 he volunteered for service in the Royal Flying Corps but was turned down. He did however serve as an infantryman with the 16th Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment achieving the rank of Lance Corporal.
He then returned to the GWR. But, dissatisfied with factory work, went to Paris and worked as a street cleaner. In 1923 he returned to London and married Winifred Sandford, a socialist who taught in London’s East End and they supported the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
During most of the late 1920s the couple moved around Europe. Ralph also spent some time in Spain working as a seaman and trade union agitator in the docks of Catalonia. The couple eventually settled in the Pyrenees where Ralph became a passionate mountain climber. It’s interesting to note that one of Ralph’s great-grandfathers had been the owner and captain of a Spanish tramp steamer carrying sherry and other goods around the Mediterranean. Ralph often said his first reason for going to Spain was to try and find his great grandfather’s grave in Cadiz.
His first book ‘Sierra’ a collection of short stories about the hardships of Spanish village life saw publication in August 1933. He followed ‘Sierra’ with ‘The Lean Man’ published in two volumes in 1934 – a novel about a country in turmoil. The Manchester Guardian described it as ‘a work of rich nature and of rare experiences. A book of force and beauty…All who are interested in Spain and its present conditions should read it.’
An energetic man
Bates’ energy levels were the stuff of fable. He organised unions and swam and climbed. The Spanish dubbed him El Fantastico! His need for money drove him to take up writing. He was in touch with literary comrades and friends in London. In fact, he appears to have travelled back and forth between Spain and London with London publishers publishing his books.
First book
His first book ‘Sierra’ a collection of short stories about the hardships of Spanish village life emerged into the light in August 1933. ‘Sierra’ preceded ‘The Lean Man’ published in two volumes in 1934. This novel about a country in turmoil is the story of an English Communist agitator Surely Ralph Bates himself – who is ‘up against an overwhelmingly cruel and powerful state?’
According to the Manchester Guardian ‘It is a work of rich nature and of rare experiences. A book of force and beauty. All who are interested in Spain and its present conditions should read it.’
‘Almost 60 years ago he was considered by some to be one of the best writers on Spain. ”He stands out as perhaps the best informed — not even excepting Andre Malraux or Ernest Hemingway — of the chroniclers of the preceding disturbed decade in Spain,” said 20th-Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, published in 1942.’
In 1936 he published‘The Olive Field’ – a story of unsuccessful revolutionary struggles and the life of the cultivators of olive trees.
The Spanish Civil War
When the Civil War erupted he became involved straight away. Being well acquainted with the Pyrenees he guided volunteers across the passes, taking part in fighting with the militias. The International Brigades made him and he edited their English-language paper, ‘Volunteer for Liberty’. In that he wrote pieces about the war for such London journals as ‘Left Review’. His wife, Winifred worked as a nurse.
In 1937 the Communist party sent him to the USA to drum up financial support and to attract more volunteers for the war in Spain. Madison Square Garden’s held a huge rally and Bates became most popular with the American left. At such a meeting he met Eve Haxman whom he married in 1942, after divorcing Winifred.
After the 1939 collapse of the Spanish republic, Ralph Bates moved to Mexico. That provided the setting for his novel ‘The Fields of Paradise (1941).
Ralph Bates resigned from the Communist party with the signing of the Stalin-Hitler pact in 1939. He settled in New York and got involved in trying to get the USA to enter the Second World War. From 1948 to 1968 he taught creative writing and other literary topics at New York University. He also came to the attention of the House of Un-American Activities Committee but refused to testify.
Bates continued to write. His last published novel ‘The Dolphin in The Wood’ (1950) appears to be based on his early years. It ends with the hero travelling to Spain.
“Almost 60 years ago he was considered by some to be one of the best writers on Spain. ‘He stands out as perhaps the best informed – not even excepting Andre Malraux or Ernest Hemingway – of the chroniclers of the preceding disturbed decade in Spain,’ said 20th-Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, published in 1942.”
And yet he remains pretty much unknown in Swindon. Unlike Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams. And the latter isn’t that well-known.
There is though a biography about him by Mike Yates that you’ll find in the library shop. Photo below from the Swindon Advertiser.
