Swindonian Blog Posts
Swindon news, views, history and culture
No 8: The Magic Roundabout Traffic System
Yes! The Magic Roundabout traffic system. As featured heavily in Secret Swindon.
It’s a bit like Marmite. But whether you love it, hate it or are indifferent to it you certainly can’t ignore it.
No 7: Swindon leisure facilities
Swindon Leisure facilities represented the land of milk and honey to me and my 12-year-old daughter when we pitched up here in the early 190s.
We left a small village in Derbyshire, a part of the country left ravaged and war-torn (and that’s not too strong a term) by the miners’ strike and the Tory government. Not only were there no jobs and no prospects there was nothing to do and nowhere to go unless you had a car which I didn’t. Once Meadowhall and Cystal Peaks opened in the Sheffield areas, our local town of Worksop, simply died.
Swindon’s Old Farmhouses
August 2013
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a busy university student needs guest bloggers to keep the blogging ball rolling. So I’m super grateful to Frances Bevan for sending me these words about some of Swindon’s old farmhouses.
Whilst my knowledge of Swindon, is at best, superficial – though my enthusiasm for the town is anything but – the same cannot be said of Frances.
No 6: The Museum of Computing Swindon
This post, as you can tell, is a very early post on this blog, featuring the Swindon Museum of Computing. I really need to have a word with my chum Simon Webb, get a guided tour, and redo it. But this will give you the idea.
The Swindon Book by Mark Child
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:
WSSW Part 6: The Watchers at Toothill
At the end of part 5 of this series, Kim and I had reached Nexus at Freshbrook, at which point we called it a day as we were ready for dinner. We’d been out for hours and had a great time but had still only visited 5 out of the 7 sculptures itemised on the tour.
A Flavour of Historic Highworth
A Flavour of Historic Highworth – the Highworth Hotel, the Ice House and more.
WSSW Part 5: Nexus at Freshbrook
In part 4 of this series my companion and myself visited ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ which is in The Prinnels, West Swindon. Now we move onto WSSW Part 5: Nexus at Freshbrook.
I 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 this sculpture I still wasn’t making the connection – and ‘connection’ is actually very apposite indeed. It was only as we approached Freshbrook that I realized what we were going to. Doh!
Wheel sculptures Old Town Cycle path
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.
WSSW Part 4: Hey Diddle Diddle
Leaving behind White Horse Pacified to move onto WSSW: Part 4 – Hey Diddle Diddle. This took Kim and I around some bits of what I term ‘proper’ places. By that I mean houses and areas that have clearly been here much longer than all this ‘new’ (70s, 80s 90s) development of Swindon.
Swindon in 50 more buildings
West Swindon – What the eye doesn’t see
Swindon – A Born Again Swindonian’s Guide
We Are Swindon
