W G Little Milliner and Draper
Born in Chippenham to a Scots family, William Graham Little arrived in Swindon in 1874.
Mrs A’s Indian Gentlemen
There’s been a lot of book talk on Born Again Swindonian of late. Well – we’re a very literary lot here in Swindon don’t y’know.
Blue Plaque for Richard Jefferies
Today, at long last, a blue plaque was unveiled at the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate Yay!
Ken White Swindon Artist
This blog is an opportunity to share a few photographs of the work of Ken White Swindon artist.
In my recently published book, Secret Swindon, I made a big effort to convey that Swindon’s cultural and creative present is as rich as its cultural and creative past. Many people/entities/artists contribute to Swindon’s varied cultural landscape as the recent Swindon Open Studios even will testify. And one of whom is Swindon born Ken.
Blue Plaques in Swindon
August 2018 Blue Plaques in Swindon There are now a number of blue plaques in Swindon. The most recent being unveiled on June 16th, 2018 on Swindon Civic Day. The plaque was installed on the exterior of the Health Hydro - aka Milton Road Baths. Swindon Civic...
Restoring the Blondinis
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/
Pens from Christ Church Pews
30th August 2017 Pew here for a hand-turned pen with a Christ Church connection Swindon pen-maker Simon Webb, has a reputation for fashioning exquisite hand-made pens from wood connected to aspects of Swindon’s history. This time it's pens from Christ Church Pews.The...
David Bent works acquired for Swindon art collection
7th July 2017 [jetpack_subscription_form] I do like share a bit of good news on this blog listeners. And this is certainly that. Now if it were left to me I'd have a place in Swindon's art collection for dozens of Swindon artists. But until that's possible it's great...
Swindon’s Mural Men
20 January 2017 Swindon's Mural Men: Ken White and David Bent I am the mural man, I come from far away and I can paint - yes I can paint. What can you paint - I can paint murals! 'It's a small world'. A cliché? Yup. But true. And listeners it doesn't get much truer...
Diana Dors Blue Plaque
A Diana Dors Blue Plaque. Well! It’s not every day you see a candy pink Cadillac in Old Town that’s for sure. How come? The occasion of the unveiling of a blue plaque to commemorate someone that surely must rank as Swindon’s most famous daughter? None other than Diana Dors!
David Bent at Russell-Cotes
David is currently exhibiting at the Russell-Cotes museum so Carole kindly took me down there to visit as she had a meeting there. While she was busy doing important meeting stuff I was lucky enough to have a gander around this utter gem of a place. I’d never heard of it let alone been to it – and if you haven’t then you must! Preferably while David’s exhibition is still running because his art is wonderful and worth seeing always – but just generally too.
The Richard Jefferies Railway Halt
Well that was a lot of fun! The grand opening of the Richard Jefferies Halt.
I’ve mentioned more than once listeners how much I love a miniature railway, or cable car or funicular or land train… So today was just lovely. It was all a bit ‘Railway Children’ for sure! But we had flags instead of red flannel petticoats.