I first met Caroline Day in Town Gardens where she and other members of the Town Gardens art group were busy doing their thing. That was years ago. Since then I’ve bumped into Caroline at countless community events apropos the artistic community in Swindon. And I’m the proud owner of a couple of Caroline’s non-floral pieces. So – a big well done from me Caroline!
WILTSHIRE ARTIST CELEBRATES HER FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION
Wiltshire artist Caroline Day, well known for her floral artwork, is opening her first solo exhibition at the new View Gallery in Royal Wootton Bassett this weekend (Saturday March 2).
The exhibition, Everyone Blooms, will run for a month. It’ll be open to the public from 10am to 4pm until Saturday March 30 (excluding Sundays and Mondays).
The View Gallery is on the first floor of a recently renovated £3m building. It shares the location with RWB Auctions and the soon to open Quercus Bistro. You can find both of them on the ground floor.
Events
A series of complementary events will run throughout the month. The events include:
Floristry classes
A talk by an art historian on representations of florals in art history
And also a ‘meet the artist’ day with Caroline on Saturday March 16. There she’ll be drawing and answering questions about her art.
‘I’m thrilled and honoured to be holding my first solo exhibition here in my home county,’ Caroline, who lives in Old Town, Swindon, said.
I root my compositions in a reverence for places and nature, during the ever-changing seasons. Florals, in particular, allow me to engage with colour, light and structure in a wonderful way.’
Raised in Swindon, Caroline, studied fine art and specialised in ceramics before finding her niche in impactful floral art and ‘place’ art. She also taught art for fifteen years before deciding to commit her professional life to creating art full-time back in her home town.
Caroline Day, the Swindon-based artist who will be holding her first solo exhibition at the View Gallery in Royal Wootton Bassett during March. She’s pictured with one of her well known works featuring David Austin Roses.
Swindon’s cultural life – YES there is one!
Caroline has heavy involvment in the cultural life of Swindon and North Wiltshire. She’s well known for her particular love of David Austin Roses which have the look and depth of peonies but are actually famous roses which fascinate her. All along with other flowers including cherry blossom and forsythia.
Her artwork creates an almost 3D effect known as ‘chiaroscuro’. The term means the ‘illusion of a 3D space’. Caroline has received many commissions.
In 2016 she won a commission from English Heritage to create an exclusive range of artwork for them – Rose In Bloom – based on her love of David Austin Roses. English Heritage have used her work on a range orf merchandise that’s now available as far afield as Japan. Her artwork for this Wiltshire exhibition is a new collection.
‘These beautiful roses have always intrigued me,’ Caroline said. “I approach the anatomy of an object, or a flower, in much the same way as I would a human form. It’s about emphasising its planes and contours. This exhibition will feature pieces which include David Austin roses and also cherry blossom. I’ve been working long hours to finish the pieces, and it’s very exciting for me.’
The View Gallery
Jennifer Allison is the Gallery Manager at the View Gallery:
‘We’re so proud to be able to share this new collection by Caroline, who is the first solo artist to feature at the View Gallery. While the works are beautiful to see, they also encourage the viewer to look deeper, to notice the small details. And then to reflect on our own perceptions of beauty and the inevitable passing of time. We cannot wait to share her art with as many visitors as possible.’
The purpose of the View Gallery is to share works by professional artists from across the UK, both emerging and established. And further to showcase a range of mediums, styles and prices. The 2024 calendar has already been planned with themes ranging from ‘Earth’ through to ‘Colours’, and even a special Halloween inspired exhibition.
While all the works displayed in the gallery are available to buy, the team are keen to encourage people to come in and view the art, even if they aren’t looking to buy.
The space is a beautiful place to contemplate art works and to find out more about contemporary art,’ Jennifer said.
For more information about the View Gallery, Caroline’s exhibition and other events in 2024 visit https://theviewgallery.co.uk
Even though I’m a regular user of Swindon railway station for my frequent Surrey schlep to the grandchildren I tend to forget half of Brunel’s original station remains. My memory on this point isn’t helped by the modern station frontage with Signal Point behind it. Surely the only redeeming feature of that building is the large, red Network Rail logo it bears?* *I’m not, as a rule, in favour of demolishing buildings – the greenest building is the existing building and all that. But you could persuade me to make an exception for that one. Anyway …
Swindon Railway Station as it was before demolition and the building of Signal Point
And how it looks today:
The modern frontage of Swindon station – I like the font … that’s about it … thanks Chris Eley for the image.
Now here’s an aerial shot that shows Signal Point (you can make out the Network Rail logo on the right-hand corner) and the remaining station building behind it – sadly blocked from view from the town side by Signal Point. Thanks Jack Hayward for this one.
And a close-up of the remaining station building viewed from the platform 4 side.
Swindon Railway Station 1842 – viewed from the platform 4 side. This is all that remains of Brunel’s masterpiece. Referred to by the London Gazette in 1845 as to be, ‘second to none in the Kingdom, and the hotel accommodation is of the most elegant and splendid description. They communicate with each other by a covered passage way over the Railway.’
Swindon – this is Swindon – Swindon is your next station stop
The Historic England list entry about the station describes the remaining Grade II listed station building as a: ‘Two-storey classical building on the island platform at Swindon Station, opened in 1842, truncated by five bays at the eastern end c.1880s. With attached canopies c.1880s.
Side view of Swindon Railway Station – courtesy of Chris Eley.
Reasons for designation
Opened in 1842 to the designs of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the station forms part of the pioneering phase of the Great Western Railway.
Architectural interest: Despite some not inconsiderable alteration to the 1842 building and the loss of its southern partner, architectural interest remains. The surviving building ‘has a strong classical styling with characterful Swindon masonry and maintains an architectural presence of a scale uncommon amongst GWR railway stations.
Historic interest: Then of course, Swindon is of real importance to the GWR’s history. Thus the station has significance as the hub connecting east and west with Swindon’s railway works.
Group value: there’s an inter-visible relationship with the Grade II-listed former drawing offices to the west and the Grade II-listed workshops to the south-west, and an architectural resonance with many of the surviving and listed railway and related buildings nearby.
A purpose – or three
Swindon’s station had three specific purposes:
To act as an interchange for the line to Gloucester, which opened in that year
To provide refreshment rooms for passengers travelling between London and Bristol whilst trains were stopped to swap locomotives
And to provide hotel accommodation for passengers.
Brunel’s solution was a station with two island platforms. Each platform had an identical two-storey building with attached timber canopies, linked together by an iron footbridge.
Extract from the Illustrated London News 1845 showing Swindon station in its entirety with the linking footbridge.
Bourne in his ‘History’ describes the layout of these buildings in some detail. They had refreshment rooms on the ground floor in an ‘Arabesque’ style. Biddle suggests that the architect Francis Thompson may have been consulted on their design. The upper floors contained a hotel. The now lost southern building contained the public rooms and the surviving northern block the bedrooms. Bourne describes a basement which contained the kitchens and other service areas.
Deal or no deal
The Great Western Railway struck a deal with the contractors, JD and C Rigby to build Swindon’s railway station. But at their own expense. In return for footing that bill they were to keep the profits from the refreshment rooms and hotel business that would be carried out there.
To sweeten the deal, the GWR agreed to stop all trains at Swindon station for ten minutes so that the passengers could take refreshments.
Such facilities were vital. At that time it took approx four hours to get from Paddington to Bristol. And for the first few years locomotives had to be changed at Swindon. So the ten-minute stop also coincided with the GWR’s operational needs. And Swindon was the only station between Paddington and Bristol where travellers could slake their thirsts.
Thus, I’m sure you can see what’s coming, Rigby’s could look forward to a monopoly. A situation made even more attractive by the ninety-nine year rental lease of the refreshment rooms for an annual rental of one penny!
The STEAM museum website tells us that, as per Brunel’s own specifications, the station boasted large and beautifully ornate First Class refreshment rooms comparable to the décor found in a first rate hotel.
Sadly, it wasn’t long before poor service, poor quality and high prices gave the refreshment rooms a bad reputation. All of which somewhat foreshadows the infamous, and now embedded in popular culture, British Rail sandwich.
Even IKB himself wrote that the coffee was inferior and tasted as if it were made from roasted corn. He signed off the letter in which he made that comment by saying: ‘I have long ceased to make complaints at Swindon. I avoid taking anything there when I can help it.
From 30 January 2024, the cast of the iconic murder-mystery on tour will include Todd Carty (EastEnders, Grange Hill, Dancing on Ice) who continues to play Major Metcalf. And Gwyneth Strong (known for playing Cassandra in Only Fools and Horses) as Mrs. Boyle.
Joining them are:
Neerja Naik as Mollie Ralston
Barnaby Jago as Giles Ralston
Shaun McCourt as Christopher Wren
Amy Spinks as Miss Casewell
Steven Elliot as Mr. Paravicini
and Michael Ayiotis as Detective Sgt. Trotter
The queen of crime
Genre-defining murder mystery The Mousetrap, written by Agatha Christie, the world’s best-selling novelist of all time, premiered at Theatre Royal Nottingham in 1952. It toured the UK before opening in the West End. There it continues its record-breaking engagement at the St Martin’s Theatre, 70 years on. The iconic thriller’s 70th Anniversary tour also opened in Nottingham in September 2022. It continues to travel throughout the UK and Ireland. It’s marking its milestone anniversary by visiting over 70 theatres, including all cities to which it first played seventy years ago.
A full tour schedule, further information, theatre listings and ticket purchase through the website MousetrapOnTour.co.uk
As news spreads of a murder in London, a group of seven strangers find themselves snowed in at Monkswell Manor, a remote countryside guesthouse. When a police sergeant arrives, the guests discover – to their horror – that a killer is in their midst. One by one, the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts. Which one is the murderer? Who will be their next victim?
The Mousetrap is produced by Adam Spiegel with Direction by Ian Talbot OBE and Denise Silvey.
As I pointed out in my piece about what’s left of Old Town’s Corn Exchange, I don’t intend to go overboard with long-gone buildings in this Swindon in 50 More Buildings series. Indeed, I hadn’t thought about covering the Garrard factory at all. But one of Royston Cartwright’s fab Facebook posts about the business prompted me to think I should include it. After all, Garrard was a hugely important industry for Swindon. And it was a rather super 1920s building.
Local Studies, based in the central library, have some great images of the factory but of course they’re all under copyright. But they did let me have this illustration so you can get the idea.
The Garrard factory-Illustration 1920
In the beginning
The company was established in London in 1914-1918 as precision engineers, transferring to Swindon in the summer of 1919. Then they took over part of a building occupied by a Bridport firm of netmakers Messrs. Joseph Gundry and Co.
At this point they decided to concentrate on gramophone manufacturing. A difficult business for sure and one made harder by the lack of actual product experience to call on. Even so, they decided that the gramophone motor market offered good possibilities. Thus production began on their first model: No 1. Apt that.
Early days proved difficult but factory space was adequate until 1923. At this point they added 1,200 square feet of floor space. Further small additions followed fast and often as they increased their output and needed more staff. 1928 saw the addition, in two stages, of a block the entire length of the then existing factory comprising 23,000 square feet.
The following year, thanks to pressure on packing and storing their output the need arose to add a double storey block at the south end of the factory.
Came the revolution
The introduction of electrical recording and reproduction wrought a revolution (appropriately enough) in the gramophone industry. It became necessary to change-over from spring to electric motors. Hot on the heels of that came another development in the form of record changers. AND – almost at the same time the factory commenced the production of clock movements. This development the addition of two bays, each 50ft long and 20ft wide to house the required assembly line.
There were further developments in 1936, 37, 38 and 39. Then WWII broke out. At this point the Garrard factory had a area of 102,000 sq ft.
There came, in 1958, a huge fire. This conflagration required the company to demolish and rebuild the three-storey block and do a lot of rebuilding in the workshops. Plessey, among other factories, lent Garrard some space to keep up production while they made repairs to the original buildings.
The factory closed down in around 1982 and thus ended another of Swindon’s great and much-loved and much-mourned industries. Though … the legend lives on … https://garrardturntables.co.uk – Or does it? Is that now out of date?
The Garrard Factory diagram – Garrards Magazine article
‘If the Great Western Railway put Swindon on the industrial map, then nobody did more to keep it there than Garrard’s. It is a name synonymous with the very best record turntables available during a lost vinyl age – and Swindon was its home for more than six decades.’
From the sapphire to the stylus
I love the fact that the founders of the Garrard Engineering & Manufacturing Co. were none other than the directors of Garrard & Co., Crown Jewellers of Albermarle Street, London. The image you see below is an extract from a Garrard journal – courtesy of Local Studies. Quite how and why Crown jewellers decided to make the leap from rubies to record decks is an intriguing one to ponder. One assumes the aforementioned possibilities of the gramophone motor market.
Here’s some images from the launch event that I had to miss as I had to come to Surrey for half-term childcare cover. Gutted. It looks great.
Swindon Open Studios 2024 – At the launch event, Labour Parliamentary candidate Heidi Alexander with featured artistsThe launch event of Swindon open studios 2024The featured artists at SOS Pop-Up Gallery
A community organisation, Swindon Open Studios happens thanks to volunteers supporting local artists. They hold an exhibition in September each year. The artists invite members of the public into their studios, homes, and exhibition spaces to see where and how they make their art. Swindon Open Studios is super delighted to have the support of the Swindon Designer Outlet centre. It offers their artists another opportunity to share their work with the public.
The first Open Studios took place in 2004 with a follow up in 2006. From 2008 onwards the open studios event has been held annually until the intervention of COVID in 2020 and 2021.
2022 saw the welcome return of this popular community event and last year, we saw the largest number of artists participating since the event’s inception.
In celebrating twenty years of SOS, 2024 looks set to be another bumper year.
Pablo Picasso once said …
… the purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. Well back in 2014, in this now rather dated blog post about the purpose of art, I argued that, by stretching that analogy a little further ‘we could consider he 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.’
