A largely pictorial post featuring various Retro Swindon roadsigns. Some are in Swindon and some are somewhat further afield.
I’ve featured them here for not much other reason than that they have lasted this long and it feels like a nice thing to have some pictures of them here. Seems like a good enough excuse to me.
Swindon signs:
Here are some Swindon signs from various points in and around the town. In no particular order there is:
County Road, new and one rather rusty and forlorn old one. The old milestone to Semington that lives on Canal walk. And a nice snowy one in Upper Stratton. A very old post on the road from Commonhead to Coate, and a lovely traditional one between Hinton Parva and Bishopstone.
I simply adore this Walcot sign – not sure why. It’s so very retro and a bit Fawlty Towers.
Okay then – so who remember furlongs and yards? I can just about remember furlongs in the measurement table in my school exercise books. Along with Pecks and Bushels … anyway – here is a fabulous old milestone in the Savernake Forest, Marlborough.
This lovely old beauty is on the old Marlborough rd near The Spotted Cow:
Some signs from roads between Slough and London:
A lovely old one in Langley near Slough with Hyde Park on it…1741.
The other one is on the old A4 at Slough….the A 4 is an ancient thoroughfare once the main route from the west to London long before the M4 was built.
2020 update
Returning to Swindon another milestone that I saw for the first time in recent weeks when wandering round West Swindon on one of my Covid-19 constitutionals.
This is one is in West Swindon and is now set into the wall above an underpass – I’m not sure I can quite remember where now. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular when I chanced upon it.
“Tick, Tick, Tick. This is the sound of your life running out.” ― Anonymous
A wee post about Swindon’s Jubilee clock. Moved from its original town centre home, it now resides outside Swindon’s railway station where the big beady eye of Swindon’s jubilee clock has watched over things since 2012.
The Jubilee clock Swindon Station
Tick, tock, tick, tock
Designed by artist Edwin Wright and made by the Cumbrian clock company, the clock could play tunes and even announcements. It played Christmas music, including Silent Night, and Valentine’s Day love songs like Dream a Little Dream. Then GWR Radio DJ Jez Clark was the voice of the clock’s shopper announcements.
It was much derided for never working well – which is not unreasonable but I always liked it. More to the point I liked it in that position far more than than the water feature that superseded it. While it sits well in its new home on the railway station forecourt I did think it look good on the crossroads of Swindon’s pedestrianised centre – it allowed you to look in all four directions easily whereas the water-feature sort of ‘clutters’ it up. I don’t dislike the thing per se – just not there. But hey, that’s only my opinion…
According to the font of Swindon knowledge, Duncan & Mandywhose website has more fab images, the original name for this eyeball clock was the Millennium Clock. But, as the commission was to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee, the name got changed.
How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.
Zall’s Second Law
On the topic of clocks as we are, then this post about long-standing Old Town business, Deacon’s. For in their shop stands the Regulator Clock made by the Deacon’s business back in 1865. For more on that read the blog below.
The Magic Roundabout: a guide book entry I wrote this guide book entry in the final year of my English/Eng Lang studies at UWE. The piece formed part of a travel writing module.
For my coursework portfolio I wrote, amongst other things, some stuff about Swindon:
* a travelogue on the West Swindon Sculpture walk.
*and this guide-book entry for the Magic Roundabout.
I also wrote a guide-book entry for the West Swindon sculpture walk. But it was this one that I submitted for my portfolio and for which I got a 1st. Indeed a 1st for the degree as a whole. 🙂
Other writings on Born again Swindonian about the MR
Dare you navigate yourself across the infamous & world-famous counter-flow ‘Magic-Roundabout’ – the ‘white-knuckle’ ride of traffic?
The Magic Roundabout
You’d be forgiven for being perplexed at the notion of a traffic roundabout being of any interest to anyone other than traffic-system aficionados. But you couldn’t be more wrong. This fabled entity is known the world over.
Created in 1972, Swindon’s Magic Roundabout was originally named the County Islands roundabout due to its location in close proximity to the town’s County Ground football stadium, home of Swindon Town FC. But the locals were not long in bestowing upon it the nickname ‘The Magic Roundabout’ after the TV programme of that name. Eventually the local authority submitted to the popular consensus and officially re-named the roundabout and gave it appropriate signage.
A Town of Roundabouts
Swindon is famous, even infamous, for its roundabouts. But this legendary one surely has to be the jewel in the town’s roundabout crown? Situated on a junction where five roads meet, the traffic-consuming monster vexes native visitors and utterly baffles those from across the pond. For all this though Swindonians love it and generally find their passage across it to be smooth and fluid, even at peak times.
The Road Research Laboratory
The roundabout was created by the Road Research Laboratory (RRL) to deal with an area that was a motorist’s nightmare, being routinely unable to handle the sheer volume of traffic converging on it from five directions. Like many of the best ideas their solution was stunning in its simplicity. They simply combined two roundabouts in one. The first being of the conventional clockwise type and the second, revolving inside the first, sending traffic anti-clockwise. This counter-flow roundabout solved the congestion problems back in the 1970s and is still, despite the ensuing increase in traffic volume over the last 40 years, processing it all as quickly and as smoothly as a giant Magimix.
Traffic keeps moving almost all the time, waiting only a few seconds to join each mini-roundabout and thus steadily travelling at low speed across the junction. A normal roundabout would involve long waits to join; signals would involve bursts of movement and long enforced stoppages. As a result, it has been calculated that the Magic Roundabout has a greater throughput of traffic than anything else that it would be possible to install in the same space. Magic indeed! Moreover, it has an excellent safety record.
A bark worse than its bite
Although voted the seventh worst junction in the UK, the roundabout’s bark is worse than its bite. Though appearing difficult to negotiate, all it asks of the driver is to be observant and to always give priority to traffic coming from the right.
One approach to the roundabout is to drive down Drove Road from Swindon’s Old Town. If you don’t fancy manoeuvring it in a car it’s possible to stand and observe the carefully controlled mayhem from the safety of the pavement – you can even consume fish and chips from the chippy on the corner while you do.
Swindonians are very proud of their Magic Roundabout and the tourist information desk, situated in the town’s central library on Regent Circus, sells a wide range of Magic Roundabout memorabilia that runs the range from key-rings to mugs to tea-towels and even T-shirts. So, if you’ve braved this colossal contraption of a road system you can celebrate your feat of derring-do with a suitable souvenir or two.
XTC
Whether you love it, hate it or are indifferent to it one thing is for sure: visit Swindon and you can’t ignore it. Swindon-grown band XTC effectively and poetically capture the dizzying assault on the senses this behemoth can induce in their 1981 song: ‘English Roundabout’:
‘ … all the horns go ‘beep! beep!’ All the people follow like sheep, I’m full of light and sound, Making my head go round, round.’
A weekend visit to the Swindon designer outlet centre or whatever it is we are calling it, has prompted me to write a view lines about it. Cos I think it’s really rather cool – and I don’t only mean for the shopping.
Leaving the foodcourt & looking towards the car park
Occupying the restored Great Western Railway Works near Swindon town centre, this is a covered McArthur Glen designer outlet. It’s located a few miles from J16 of the M4 motorway.
There’s a steam locomotive on display in the eating area – currently (Feb 2020 – Ditcheat Manor).
Which, as descriptions go, is fine. But it doesn’t, it can’t, convey the atmosphere of the place.
I love that the Swindon one has taken the home of a once glorious, but now long-gone industry, and breathed new life into it by becoming the home of a 21st century industry: retail.
Instead of a slow disintegration followed by demolishment, the workshops of the Great Western Railway* are recycled, revitalised and regenerated. And in a way that has retained the character of the workshops. Always the original industrial use of the buildings is clear. Whenever I stroll around and look at the beams, the bits of machinery and the engine in the food court my thoughts turn to the men and women who worked so grindingly hard within these walls.
The Great Western Railway
Founded in 1833 and engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British Railway company. It linked London with the south-west, the west of England and much of Wales.
The GWR was alone in keeping its identity through the Railways Act 1921. That act amalgamated the GWR with the remaining independent railways in its territory. 1947 saw it merged and nationalised into the Western Region of British Railways.
God’s Wonderful Railway
Many refer to the GWR as God’s Wonderful Railway. While other call it The Great Way Round. Either way, it found fame as the Holiday Line – taking people to resorts in South West England.
Many of the company’s locomotives, built in the workshops in Swindon, were painted in Brunswick green. Though for most of its existence the GWR used a two-tone chocolate and cream livery for its passenger coaches. They painted their Goods wagons red but later changed them to mid-grey.
My recent post about the Richard Jefferiesmuseum at Coate, Swindon has prompted a reader of this blog to share with us his memories of his secondary school which was named after the eponymous writer.
The school is no longer with us – it was demolished to make way for New College. But of course the memories live on in former pupils like Lee.
I have truly enjoyed reading Lee’s memories which are funny, moving and bittersweet – as I guess most of our school memories are. And Mrs Howard – I’d like to shake you by the hand. If only ALL children, from every background, could have a Mrs Howard! She clearly left a lasting and positive impression on Lee.
The Richard Jefferies’ school – a personal memory
“The Richard Jefferies Secondary School is no longer with us – sadly demolished a few years back now to make way for the New College and housing estate close by. I would love to be able to tell you who named the school after the great writer of Coate but alas I cannot. I was at the school from around 1969/73.
At the time Swindon was a boom town for kids, with the London generation mainly squeezing in to schools like Richard Jefferies, the nearby Walcott Secondary School and also Churchfields. It’s amazing to think that three very big schools were in spitting distance of each other.
I remember very well my first day at the school – I was the only boy wearing shorts and got some terrible stick for that. I remember too, Mr Adams the maths teacher, Mr Summers the PE teacher, Mr Petit in science and, my favourite teacher by miles, the English teacher Mrs Howard. She saw my interest in poetry and writing. And though at the time I didn’t realize it, she tried hard to convince me that I should embrace this.
I was in Council care as a kid – fostered for many years. Ultimately I lived out my young days in The Limes Childrens’ Home, so I wasn’t the happiest kid to teach. But Mrs Howard did her best to make me feel special. The class was astonished to hear that I’d been picked to play the King in King Canute in the school play. She did her best to get me to hold back the tide with conviction but to no avail…I was terrible and she replaced me with another child.
School dinners
I vividly remember the school dinners. Was I the only one to fall in love with them? Who can remember the vivid taste of the school dinner salad cream, like a sweet battery acid?
Amazingly the school had a fair size swimming pool where I got bullied into learning to swim. I doggy paddled my way to red, yellow and green badges that were sewn onto my trunks.
Many of the kids around me were fairly rough and tough and from the Parks area. You had to hold your own with them. I remember the football with a tennis ball at break time. My moment of glory arrived one dinner time when Ant Adams crossed the ball for me to bullet a header in the goal. All my team pounced upon me in joyous celebration. It’s a moment I still remember and cherish.
Most of the school went to Park/Oakfield school for their last phase of education on leaving Richard Jefferies. For me it was onto Headlands School because the Limes Home where I lived was/is in Stratton.
So what would the great man have thought of the school named after him? That is anyone’s guess.
Reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm in English was the first inkling that the world was a strange place through an adults eye. That book was both weird and wonderful to me.
So for me, Richard Jefferies taught me more about myself than it taught me educationally. Many Swindonians passed through the door of this school and there must be a story to tell by every one of them.”
