Swindon is one of the most important historic railway towns in England.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Great Western Railway transformed Swindon from a small, hilltop market town into an industrial giant with one of the largest railway engineering complexes in the world.
- Why was the railway important to Swindon?
- Railway sites to see in Swindon
- Housing the railway workforce
- Health and wellbeing for workers
- The blueprint for the National Health Service
- The regeneration of Swindon
Why was the railway important to Swindon?
The Great Western Railway was established in 1833 to connect Bristol and London.
Swindon was an important location en route. It was here that the land became steeper, meaning that a more powerful engine had to be attached to complete the journey to Bristol.
In 1840, it was decided that Swindon would be the site of the Great Western Railway’s engine shed and repair and manufacturing works.
The following year, it was agreed that refreshment rooms would be made available at Swindon for passengers waiting for the engines to be swapped.
The Great Western Railway revolutionised Swindon. In 1841, the population of the small hilltop market town numbered 2,459.
By the middle of the 20th century, over 14,000 people worked in the town’s massive railway works. A new Swindon was born.
Railway sites to see in Swindon
If you’re a rail enthusiast, there are plenty of historic sites to see in and around Swindon.
1. Swindon station
The Great Western Railway struck a deal with the contractors JD and C Rigby to build Swindon’s railway station.
The journey between London and Bristol took 4 hours. It was agreed that trains would stop at Swindon for 10 minutes while engines were changed.
As Swindon was the only stop between London and Bristol with refreshment rooms, the Rigbys were able to take advantage of this money-making opportunity.
Poor service and high prices soon gave the refreshment rooms a bad reputation.
2. The Great Western Railway Works site
The Great Western Railway Works at Swindon grew rapidly as it was filled with workshops, stores, offices, and lines of rail track.
Building material included stone from the quarries up the hill in old Swindon. These quarries had been working since Roman times.
Soon after, the workshops built wagons and the Great Western Railway’s locomotives. The Works established a world-class reputation for the quality of its engineering.
3. The General Offices
The Great Western Railway’s general office building was the nerve centre of the Works in Swindon. It was built between 1842 and 1843 and was enlarged in the 1870s and 1900s.
It housed the office of Sir Daniel Gooch, the Great Western Railway’s first locomotive superintendent, and the drawing office, where some of the great steam locomotives were designed.
After the closure of the Works, it became the head office of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. The building is now used as offices for Historic England and English Heritage.
4. The Carriage Works
In the late 1860s, Swindon was chosen as the location for the Great Western Railway’s Carriage Works, which were used to construct new train carriages.
A new range of buildings was erected between the main line and the Railway Village, a grid of streets and houses next to the railway station for its workforce.
The carriages were constructed on the upper floor, which was level with the main line. The lower floor included accommodation for machinery and a vast canteen for workers.
As early as 1871, it was reported that 1,100 men were employed in this part of the factory complex.
5. The Works Entrance and Tunnel
Before 1870, workers had to cross the rail line to get to the Works buildings from the Railway Village. This resulted in several accidents.
Built in 1870, the entrance building gave access to a tunnel that took workers from the Railway Village beneath the main London to Bristol railway line to the vast Great Western Railway Works complex.
It runs beneath the GWR Carriage Works and is roofed with brick jack arches springing from cast-iron beams.
6. The Water Tower
The Water Tower was designed and built between 1870 and 1872 for the Great Western Railway Works.
It was built to provide water at high pressure for fire-fighting purposes and was constructed with cast iron braced girders.
Housing the railway workforce
As there was no local heavy industry tradition in Swindon, workers had to be brought in from Bristol, London, northern England and Scotland.
Good quality housing and a range of facilities were needed to entice and retain a skilled workforce.
A cottage estate was built to the south side of the main line. Between 1842 and 1855, 300 cottages were built. Rent payments were deducted from Great Western Railway’s employees’ weekly pay.
Rooms were often sub-let, meaning some cottages were home to 2 families. This led to overcrowding in the Railway Village.
The Railway Village Museum
34 Faringdon Road houses the Swindon Railway Village Museum.
The cottage is 1 of 300 built in the 1840s as part of a new estate to house workers for the Great Western Railway’s new factory complex.
The house was occupied until the late 1970s and opened as a museum in 1980.
Workers’ cottages
These cottages in Swindon’s Railway Village were built between 1846 and 1847 for workers employed at the nearby Great Western Railway Works.
Each dwelling is 1 bay wide and 2 rooms deep. Brick lean-tos were added to the rear in the 20th century. The cottages were extensively renovated between the 1960s and the early 1980s.
The Barracks
Not all of the dwellings built to house Great Western Railway workers were in the form of rows of cottages.
An imposing lodging house was built in the Railway Village to accommodate single male workers. Known as The Barracks, it had over 100 sleeping rooms, a day room, a bakery and kitchens.
It proved unpopular as many potential occupants preferred to lodge with local families. Between 1868 and 1869, it was converted into a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, and a pair of stair towers were added to the front.
Almost a century later, it became the Great Western Railway Museum and, since 2010, has been a youth centre.
Park House
Park House was built in 1876 for GM Swinhoe, the chief medical officer of the Great Western Railway.
As well as a domestic dwelling, it was a surgery with consulting rooms. Later, it was used as a medical examination centre where prospective employees came to be examined before obtaining work with the Great Western Railway.
Health and wellbeing for workers
The Great Western Railway and its workers built and developed buildings and facilities that were essential for employees’ spiritual, physical and intellectual health, their families and the wider local community.
Such amenities included a public park, a parish church, medical facilities and public houses.
Swindon’s railway heritage also connects directly with the founding of the National Health Service.
The Church of St Mark
St Mark’s is the Anglican parish church of New Swindon.
It was built between 1843 and 1845 to designs by Scott and Moffatt as part of a desire to provide spiritual and educational facilities for the workers employed at the nearby Great Western Railway Works.
The Cricket Ground and the Park
Originally a cricket ground for workers of the adjacent Railway Village, the Park was landscaped between 1871 and 1872 and a park-keeper’s lodge and greenhouses were built. Formal gardens were also laid out.
The lodge was subsequently demolished, and little evidence remains of the gardens. However, the Park remains a popular town-centre amenity for residents and workers.
The Great Western Railway Mechanics’ Institution
The Great Western Railway Mechanics’ Institution was formed in 1844. Its purpose was to educate and entertain the workers of the Great Western Railway and the local community in New Swindon.
Initially housed in a building on the Works site, a new, bespoke Institution was built at the heart of the Railway Village between 1853 and 1855 and was enlarged from 1892 to 1893.
It contained a library, reading room, coffee room, mess room, baths, and an assembly hall/theatre. A covered market was attached to the south end, later replaced by a reading room extension.
Following the closure of the Swindon Works, the Mechanics’ Institution closed on 9 February 1986.
The Great Western Railway Mechanics’ Institution Branch Reading Rooms
The Institution’s main building was situated within the railway village. Demand was such that this branch was built in 1904. It comprised a reading room, hall and games room.
When this photograph was taken, the building was occupied by the North Wiltshire branch of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade.
Hotels and public houses
Swindon’s Railway Village includes commercial premises built at the ends of rows of workers’ cottages in the 1840s.
Several of these were converted into public houses. The Glue Pot‘s name derives from the pots of glue that workers used in the nearby Great Western Railway Carriage Works.
The Queens Tap
Also known as The Queens Hotel, The Queens Tap was built in 1842 to 1843 by JD and C Rigby.
It was designed by the office of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and is situated opposite Swindon railway station. The Rigbys were also responsible for constructing the cottages in Swindon’s Railway Village.
The Great Western Hotel
The construction of the Carriage Works in the late 1860s necessitated further expansion of New Swindon.
A new estate was built on the land south of Swindon Station, including terraced houses, shops and a public house – the Great Western Hotel.
The Great Western was built between 1869 and 1870 for the local brewers Messrs Arkell and Son. Before the end of the century, it was extensively enlarged.
The Dolphin Hotel
The Dolphin was established as a public house by local brewers Arkell’s in the late 19th century. Situated in Even Swindon, it was popular with workers at the nearby Great Western Railway Works.
The pub obtained special licences to open early to service Great Western Railway workers and their families before departure on the company ‘Trip’ days.
The blueprint for the National Health Service
In 1847, the Railway employees formed the Great Western Railway Medical Fund Society.
It provided help with doctors’ bills for employees and their families and ensured that Railway Village cottages were habitable. Subscriptions to the fund were deducted from wages.
Until it was taken over by the National Health Service in 1947, the Medical Fund Society was run by a committee of Great Western Railway employees elected by their colleagues.
From armoury and drill hall to hospital
Set between 2 cottages of the Railway Village, the Central Community Centre was built in 1862 as an armoury and drill hall for local volunteers.
By 1872, it was converted into an accident hospital for the Medical Fund Society, to which employees and workers at the nearby Great Western Railway Works subscribed. It remained a hospital until 1960, becoming a community centre in the 1970s.
Medical Fund Baths and Dispensary
The Baths and Dispensary brought together most of the dispersed Medical Fund Society provisions under one roof.
Built between 1891 and 1892, the Health Hydro included 2 swimming pools, medical consultation rooms and a dispensary. Extensions added washing baths and Turkish and Russian baths in the following years.
Aneurin Bevan, the chief architect of the National Health Service, stated: “There it was, a complete health service. All we had to do was to expand it to embrace the whole country!”
The Turkish Baths
Between 1905 and 1906, the Great Western Railway Medical Fund Society Baths and Dispensary were enlarged to include a suite of Turkish and Russian baths.
The suite has been identified as England’s oldest surviving, continually functioning Turkish bath establishment.
The regeneration of Swindon
Since the closure of the Works, much has been done to transform the vast site.
While some factory buildings have been lost over the years, several significant Great Western Railway buildings have survived and been put to new use.
The cottages in the Railway Village continue to be occupied, but the Mechanics’ Institution at the heart of the Village remains empty and at risk. The baths, park and church all continue to serve the local community.
Surviving Great Western offices and workshops have been converted to accommodate Historic England and English Heritage, and a vast retail outlet has become a major leisure destination. Appropriately, a museum of the Great Western Railway has been created in surviving former workshops.
Since 2019, Historic England has been working in partnership with Swindon Borough Council to restore and repair neglected public buildings and bring them back into use, improve public spaces and connections between the Railway Village and the town centre, and promote and celebrate the area’s special qualities.
Find out more about the Swindon Heritage Action Zone.
Further reading
- ‘Swindon: the Legacy of a Railway Town’ by John Cattell and Keith Falconer (English Heritage, 1995, 2000)
- A Brief History of Community Centres in England
- A Brief Introduction to High-Tech Architecture
- The History of Brick Building in England
- Knowledge is Power: The Struggle for Education for All
HI Mike, this is an interesting post. It is amazing how many places and building the Great Western Railway initiated in this town. Of course, at the time, railways were of great importance.
A “Brief Introduction” with so many memories. One grandfather was a coppersmith, whose whole working life (apart from WW1 with Royal Engineers) was in Carriage Works. Paternal grandfather joined GWR after Army career and was clerk at main entrance (entrance to tunnel), checking workers in and out. Dad’s career was in Drawing Office (also with hiatus of WW2 REME service).
Couple of personal experiences. As a kid, I twice received treatment at the GWR hospital for minor injuries, and later learned to swim at what is now the “hydro”. At the time it was also the Health Centre where all the town’s GPs were based.