At last! I’ve managed to get my copy of The Swindon Book by Mark Child, from the tourist information desk at the central library. As the back cover says, the book is:
‘The story of Swindon, from the earliest times to the present day, is here encapsulated in an alphabetical compendium of people who have influenced its development, places that have given character to its landscape and important events that have punctuated its history. The SWINDON BOOK, written by an eminent local historian, and writer on history, topography and architecture, is a unique and readable distillation of the centuries’.
Hmmm, well, I won’t lie – a bit of plain English wouldn’t have come amiss on that back cover. In other words, the book comprises a collection of bite-sized titbits arranged in alphabetical order. So don’t let the somewhat purple prose on the back put you off . Because it is – as it says – readable.
Here you’ll find a labour of love stuffed full of all sorts of wonderful nuggets of information that the author has been squirreling away for years.
I haven’t had time to have a thorough browse yet. Reading that David Putnam unveiled the statue of Diana Dors outside the Shaw Ridge cinema complex piqued my interest. That’s a pretty cool thing I think. As is the book as a whole.
It’s really very informative and a ‘must have’ for anyone with any interest in Swindon’s history.
The Swindon Book and the Swindon Book Companion
Of course, other people’s writings are a useful source/resource for one’s own. I used these books and others for reference when writing Secret Swindon.And again for Swindon in 50 Buildings.
‘Artist: Carleton Attwood. Material: Cement Fondue. Project details: Funded by R.S. McColl and E.H.Bradley Building Projects Ltd. The sculpture represents guardian figures looking over the community.’
‘The Watchers, 1982, by Carleton Attwood (1908 to 1985) at Toothill Village Centre. The first sculpture in West Swindon, cast in ferro-concrete at Swindon’s town hall studios, is one of Carleton’s last works and due to his ill-health was largely completed by sculptor Pat Elmore. The work represents the guardians of the new community.’ – from Swindon Link in 2017.
And, as you can see in the picture, they are still there, still quietly watching.
Carleton Attwood
Swindon born, Carleton Attwood created a number of works in Swindon that you might well be familiar with. One of them is a bust of Alfred Williams that resides in the museum and art gallery up in Old Town.
Here’s a link to a blog about conserving the bust from the Wiltshire and Swindon History centre. As they say: ‘ Although Attwood worked in many more traditional materials, this bust is made from moulded concrete. Some of his other well known public commissions are “Golden Lion” in Regent Street and “The Watchers” at Toothill Village Centre.’
A Flavour of Historic Highworth – the Highworth Hotel, the Ice House and more.
Beloved by Betjeman
Amongst a few complimentary things Betjeman had to say about Highworth there was this:
“There was a sound of tea being cleared away in a cottage just near us. And suddenly with a burst the bells of Highworth church rang out for Evening Service. As though called by bells the late sun burst out and bathed the varied roofs with gold and scooped itself into the uneven panes of old windows. Sun and stone and old brick and garden flowers and church bells. That was Sunday evening in Highworth – that was England.”
(‘Postscript from Highworth’ in ‘First and Last Loves’ – John Betjeman, 1952)
Highworth Historical Society
Now I’m clearly no expert on the place, I’ll leave that Mastermind position to the Highworth Historical Society, but I think it’s fair to say that it hasn’t changed sooooo much since Betjemen wrote those words back at the beginning of the 1950s.
It really is very charming!
There’s no point me going on in detail about the place in this post as it’s already been done and by better folk than me – as above and in the wonderful glossy booklet the ‘Highworth Town Trail’. A bargain at £2.50, this glossy, full-colour brochure is stuffed with photographs and fascinating information.
Ice House and More
Along with discovering the Betjemen connection I was very excited by the ice-house. I had no idea this existed and it’s amazing – it made me think of a 17th/18th century Disneyworld with the interconnecting, underground passages for the servants of the house to scurry around in and pop up where needed. All without guests enjoying the garden having to do anything so dreadful as see them at work.
Just like Mickey Mouse and the Disney Princesses then.
St. Michael and All Angels church is delightful (which, like everything, is beautifully described in the Highworth Town Trail) and I loved the cannon-ball. How cool is that? To have a Civil-War cannonball indentation in the wall of the church and the actual cannon-ball hanging inside the church? Wonderful stuff.
A heart marked out in cobbles
This cobbled entrance to an alleyway where there is a heart-shape marked out in cobbles intrigued me. By whom and why? All part of the rich tapestry that is this lovely little town.
In part 4 of this series my companion and myself visited ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ in The Prinnels, West Swindon. Now we move onto WSSW Part 5: Nexus at Freshbrook.
I’ve explained about spending the last twenty years seeing but not really ‘noticing’ that sculpture from the bus and never realising the significance of it. Which is a bit shameful when you think of it. Well I’m sorry to say that my chagrin doesn’t end there. Oh dear me no! The situation with this next one is very similar I’m sorry to say. Even as my friend and I were reading the ‘bumph’ about Nexus I still wasn’t making the connection. And ‘connection’ is most apposite indeed. It was only as we approached Freshbrook that I realized what we were going to. Doh!
About Nexus at Freshbrook
The blurb has this to say about this art work: ‘Nexus 1986. Artist Hideo Furuta. Material: Blue Pennant stone. Project details: Nexus was carved by the artist, using hand-made tools, in public and in situ. The residency was funded by Thamesdown Borough Council and Southern Arts.’
Nexus by Hideo Futura at Freshbrook
Now, much like glimpsing ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ several times a week from the bus and it never registering, the same applies here.
I walk to Freshbrook several times a week and had never given it any thought. Well that’s no longer the case. I’m still not sure that I like this one but having read about it and pondered on it some, it’s becomes more interesting.
Nexus – join the dots
The name of it for a start. The word ‘Nexus’ ( I did actually know this) comes from the Latin of ‘‘a binding together’, from nex- ‘bound’, from the verb nectere.
It also has the connotation of meaning a connection or series of connections linking two or more things. So th the nexus between industry and political power for example. Or it can denote a connected group or series: a nexus of ideas. Or a central or focal point. For instance, the nexus of any government in this country is No. 10.
So, to my mind, the ‘meaning’of this sculpture works on a couple of levels – especially when you consider that it rests on railway sleepers. So, in the first instance, in the macro or the big picture, the railway undoubtedly let Swindon become the town that it is today. A place that links with the rest of the south-west and with the south-east.
But on a micro or more local level, I think what’s key, is the fact that Freshbrook village centre is:
A focal point for Freshbrook itself being the home of a community centre, a Drs surgery, a dentist, a pharmacy, a supermarket, a hairdresser, a takeaway, a school, a pub and a church – all needs catered for there I think.
But also, it’s sort of at the centre of Grange Park, Westlea, Freshbrook itself, in so much as it forms a link – a Nexus – between them all.
Ergo I reckon, the idea of this sculpture is that represents the function of Freshbrook as a pivot for the above. I stress though that this is only my interpretation. It could have been meant as something else entirely. But then isn’t art a bit like literature – we can each get a different meaning from it?
The meaning of art?
So, there you have it. Like I say, I’m not sure that I’d go so far as to say that I ‘like’this one. In so much as it doesn’t trigger those indefinable pleasure receptors in me. Not in the way some of the others on this walk do. But now I’ve studied it and thought about it properly – I definitely find it interesting.
I’m not Charles Saatchi or Brian Sewell – but maybe the thing with art is simply to engage with it and work out what your own responses are?
If there’s a message I want to convey in writing about these sculptures it’s this: right here on your doorstep you have this wonderful entity, this West Swindon Sculpture walk. But don’t only take my word for it all. Get out there, look at them and think about them. And even if – like me with this particular one – you don’t like one or more of them, simply appreciate that we have them.
Wheel sculptures Old Town Cycle path. There are five wheels, from the Old Town direction towards the railway and Wootton Bassett Road they are Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Conceive.
Each wheel has two parts, a small wheel showing the Element, and a large wheel with a short piece of poetry. In addition, there is a length of wood crossing the path between each of the wheel pairs. Each of these lengths of wood has two words written on them.
AIR: On hot places behind your knees On high downs a ghost is growing. Depth & disquiet.
EARTH: Our wheels relinquish and seize, relinquish and seize….Curious tenderness..second word obscured
Fire: Pistons swell and shine, days are like face, Steam pumps the sky, this one this…Extinguished – the second word is hidden.
WATER: The stream fills a cut, Swills and wave, A new start, gravel and laughter, tick tock on the rim – the two words on the sleeper are not visible.
CONCEIVE: Stepping out, out of character, You interrogate, A chaos of bearings, Where is the unknown journeyman with his bag of fives, his measuring rod and chisel? Hand & Eye
Old town to West Swindon cycle path
The Power of Social Media
A follower of this blog kindly sent me some newsletters about the project. Thank you so very, very much for that. Back in 1980 the disused railway line running along the southern flank of Swindon was saved from development by a Swindon bike group. They offered to construct a path for walking and cycling. But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the bike group got an opportunity to get creative with the path. But the documents can explain it all better than me. They were large documents which I’ve had to break down into segments. So you’ll have to ‘piece’ it together I fear. But you get the idea.
The poet, Fiona Sampson, who wrote the words for the wheels said this:
‘The mix of the industrial and the natural and cyclic in Alec’s design made me think hard about the ideas my poems needed to bridge. But it also inspired me to think about words as solid, powerful’.
I have only seen two of them. But of the ones I did see…yep powerful would do it for me. And haunting too.
Saturday the 1st of Feb 2014: Fantastic update!
Swindon local collection, have photographs on their Flickr photostream of these sculptures being created and installed. Just wonderful!
