Jubilee Lake Nature Reserve RWB - Royal Wotton Bassett 3rd June 2023 - update In the period since Lis wrote the post below about Jubilee Lake, my good friend Marilyn Trew has busied herself painting a map and information boards for a nature quiz trail that takes you...
Beat the Street is set to return to Swindon and residents can now pick up their cards ready to join in the fun when the game launches.
You may (or may not) remember that Angela and I walked half of the River Ray Parkway last year, from Moulden Hill to John Lewis. This summer (2019) we finally got around to walking the second half, John Lewis to Coate Water.
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...
The River Ray Parkway is a green walking and cycling route, introduced in 1991 as part of the Great Western Community Forest scheme, it ran for 8 miles from Coate Water to Moulden Hill.
It was expanded from the original effort to create the Swindon Old Town Rail Path, developed with the help of Sustrans, then a small Bristol group formed to create better walking and cycling routes.
28th May 2017 [jetpack_subscription_form] King's Farm Wood Walk With the Switch-on to Swindon initiative kicking off this year I thought it would be good to get some perspectives on Swindon from some other people instead of only mine. Read my Switch on to Swindon...
23rd March 2015 Richard Jefferies Old Town walk Part 1 Oh listeners, I do love a bit of urban discovery. As is evidenced with my travelogue on the West Swindon sculpture trail. And the subject of this post turned out to offer some nuggets of urban discovery.When I say...
So what is the Western Flyer then? It’s an upgrade of an existing cycle and pedestrian route that goes from West Swindon to the town centre via Barnfield, Bruce Street Bridges and North Star, bringing you into town across from Holbrook House on Station Rd. It incorporates National Cycle Network Route 45 . The National cycle network is a ‘series of safe, traffic-free lanes and quiet on-road routes that connect to every major city and passes within a mile of 55 per cent of UK homes. It now stretches 14,500 miles across the length and breadth of the UK.Â
I’m lost for words. Well okay, that’s never going to actually happen but the expression gives an indication of my surprise at finding out about this delight tucked away behind a busy main road, an industrial estate and the Holiday Inn Express. Well, I’ve only lived here the twenty years so how could I possibly be expected to know eh? Even worse, Hagbourne Copse West Swindon is only 15 minutes walk from my home in Grange Park.
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!
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.
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!
