In the early days of this blog – in the summer of 2013 even – I wrote a post about the sculpture of the Great Blondinis. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about here’s the post in question: https://swindonian.me/2013/06/24/the-great-blondinis-sculpture/
When I mention RAM dear listeners I speak not of Random Access Memory a la computer land but of the Swindon Ram Public Art piece in Old Town
4th December 2016 [jetpack_subscription_form] 'Today I went to a field in Wiltshire to witness the unveiling of a life-sized plaster elephant.' A sentence I expected to utter never. But life is full of surprises huh? So. We have an elephant. in Swindon - well...
26th June 2016 It's the rail thing Swindon Town Hall Railings Oh listeners. I AM ashamed. All the years I've been in Swindon and have walked past the town hall - now the home of Swindon Dance - I've never noticed the Swindon town hall railings and how beautiful they...
Not being a driver I don’t generally get to the Royal Mail sorting office out at Dorcan. But recently I was there with someone else and was pleasantly surprised to see this feet artwork on the perimeter fence of the Dorcan office.
Not having got any small children I’m not au fait with the town’s play parks. However, I have a friend with a small daughter and sometimes visit a play park with them. And a few weeks ago we went to the Angel Ridge play area. It’s taken me weeks to get round to posting on it!
Built in 1870, 380 ft (1115.8m), 15ft (4.6m) wide and 7ft (2-1m) high, the GWR Workers’ tunnel still provides the main pedestrian access from the railway village to the Works’ site.
Back in 2013, when I conceived this blog, my starting point was 10 things to celebrate about Swindon.
his was a non-definitive list, in no particular order, of things that I felt worth shouting about. The list encompassed parks, public art, artists, museums and even the buses. Though, TBH, I’ve changed my mind about the buses. (2020)
If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” So said Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of children’s classic, The Secret Garden.
Well, be that as it may we can easily say that the whole of Swindon is a garden. Or a park or green space at any rate – given that here in Swindon we are astonishingly well-blessed with leafy and open spaces. It is quite astonishing when you stop to think about it. You can read about some of them here: https://swindonian.me/category/parks-and-open-spaces/
THE tradition of the Midnight Hunter and his headless hounds–always, in Cornwall, associated with Tregeagle–prevails everywhere. Whether the slice of mythology and folklore below is the inspiration for Swindon’s fantastical Wish Hounds sculpture I’ve no idea. But they’ve always intrigued me.
I’ve written about the West Swindon sculpture trail in several different ways in this blog. This West Swindon Sculpture Trail Travelogue though is a bit different. It’s a more literary piece that I wrote as a piece of coursework for a trave lwriting module I took as part of my degree level English studies.
I just love social media! One of my Twitter and blog followers sent me this photo,which is great, as being a non-driver and bogged down in studies I don’t get to all four corners of our town.
What you are looking at is piece of public art that is also a handy bench: a perfect marriage of form and function indeed! But not just any old bench.
This here is a Portrait Bench. So now, not only do I know about this lovely bench, I also know about the concept of portrait benches and a little bit more about Swindon’s history. And it started with a Tweet!
