Swindon Before the Railway - a talk by Nicola Cornick

 We gathered excitedly last Thursday around our computers for a Zoom talk by historian and author Nicola Cornick, fascinated to find out more about Swindon before the railway put it on the map as a destination between Bristol and London.I took copious notes, but not being a historian, I have only a hazy idea about what ages a medievalist might be interested in, it's between 6th-14th centuries. The map below dates from about 1804,  a mere 37 years before the railway came through this idyllic country town                                                                                                                                                                                               

It's interesting speculate on various places on the map, was the Direction Post the site of the current Magic Roundabout? And is the Small Pox House the site of the former Victoria Hospital? And the origin of the name Swindon, was it really Swine Down, or Suindune in The Domesday Book. The place where pigs were raised?

Nicola took us back to when Swindon was a Saxon village with farmers and craftspeople living here, 1000 years ago there were blacksmiths and cutlery was being made here. The Vikings were here in 878 and were defeated. After the Norman Conquest, the area was divided into five areas. The town on the hill, what is now known as Old Town has a road system based on a square, with a market square in front of the Corn Exchange which goes back to 1346.

Above you can see a photograph of High Street which looks very similar today

What are mostly missing are the Holyrood Church above and totally missing, the Lawn Mansion House which was demolished in 1952

The Bell was a pub for a long time, although apparently not as long as is claimed above the door, sadly no longer a pub

Swindon has a reputation for smuggling, with many passageways beneath Old Town supposedly used for this, the Moonraker's pub sign is a Wiltshire tradition, told here.

This photo shows the interior of Ashdown House where some of the finest Swindon stone, Purbeck limestone was used for flooring.

The Cotswold Games involved lots of sword fighting as can be seen here, and also standing on your head, riding horses and shooting . What a great advertisement for the games this is.

And so we come to the end of the illustrated talk, with the last slide depicting a country lane.

Despite William Morris's disparaging remarks made about Swindon in the 1885, describing Holy Rood Church as 'insignificant', there's plenty of evidence that Swindon was a thriving rural market town, with plenty of advantages such as stone, springs and excellent farm land around. With a little bit of searching, I found this excellent blog post written by Nicola giving far more interesting details than I managed to note down.

The video recording of the talk is ready now, please click : here it is.

I've also had a couple of extra pieces of information, firstly in answer to my question, which I feel silly about now, I asked where the mill was! A member of the Friends has supplied these two paintings:

They are both by Thomas Luckett Jefferies who was Richard Jefferies' uncle. He also owned the Mill, the bakers by the Locarno as well as the farm.

Nicola was asked on the night about whether Wadard became Goddard and says this:

I also looked into the question on the night as to whether the Goddard family were descended from Wadard, the knight who owned Swindon after the Norman Conquest. Although there is a branch of the Goddard family who do claim descent from Wadard, there isn’t actually a properly authenticated family tree that proves this!

There was also a question about the pest house, here's the location:

'We have just watched the recording of Nicola's talk, and we noticed the question about where the pest house was.  The pest house is marked on the 1873 OS 25 inch map of Swindon.  The National Library of Scotland has digitised old OS maps and overlaid them on a modern satellite view.

The link below should take you to the page (you may have to get rid of an instruction sheet first by pressing X at its top right).  On the map page, you should see the pest house roughly in the centre, and there's a control panel on the left at the bottom of which is a transparency slider.  Use this to get rid of the old map and see where the pest house location is today - in the alleys between Goddard Avenue and The Mall.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.872345998877556&lat=51.54876&lon=-1.78602&layers=178&b=1

'From Response to lasting Image' a talk by Juliet Wood

We were fortunate enough to have the artist Juliet Wood talking about her life and work for our second Zoom talk a couple of weeks ago. Juliet ran through her early interest in art, when I think she and others recognised a real artistic talent, leading her to spend time as a student at The Slade, then a postgraduate year in Italy. Then followed 5 children, which it seemed might have had an effect on the progress of Juliet's life as an artist. However, Juliet's website gives a more accurate and succinct summary of Juliet's life, and her chronology an illustration of the wealth and breadth of her experience.
I first met Juliet at her exhibition 'Alone and Together, Brunel's People' where as Juliet says:
'In our ever faster moving world, I sat still in a fast food restaurant, a visual feast, recording hundreds of moments over more than a decade, gradually developing this series of themed paintings'. Juliet has also produced a video about these paintings here

 This painting above is called 'The Greeting' and really expresses the range of activities in the fast food restaurant really well, from the man sitting down at the end of his shift, the two men chatting to each other while a woman carries a bag behind them, and the people in the background are cooking food.

 I particularly like this painting because of the range of activities you can see, and also the fact that Juliet was photographed with Lakshmi who was cleaning the floor::

And here is Juliet drawing in McDonald's.

 Juliet has also produced some paintings of the seaside which make me long to be beside the sea.
These are of Cromer Beach and Pier

 and below the pier from the other side than shown above; Juliet stood in the water to draw this composition, with the tide rising!!

There were also some fabulous portraits, I particularly liked these, Juliet says:
‘At the heart of my painting is the expression of human life, and portraiture has always been a part of that.’ and there's lots more information on her website

 Above Ned, Jamie and Ellen Atiyah, three siblings

 This was a beautiful portrait, Juliet has conveyed so much here, and showed us drawings she had done of the hands.

This is a portrait of Chris Bretherton.
Maybe my absolute favourite portrait though is of one of Juliet's grandson's, Rex seen as a drawing and then the portrait:

 Here is the painting of Rex, with his father's portrait in the background, I think!

 I have only conveyed a fraction of the talk and what it covered here, but would like to thank Juliet Wood for giving us such a comprehensive overview of her work, and giving us such a pleasurable evening.
 Prints and books can be bought by clicking on the links.
And finally, as many of you know, while Swindon Museum and Art Gallery is closed due to Covid-19 restrictions, we have organised a selection of talks to hold via Zoom. It works this way, those who have joined the Friends, should be on my emailing list, and will receive a link to the Zoom talk just before it is held.It's a good way of keeping in touch with the Friends during these difficult times, and partly makes up for the fact we can't get together in the art gallery.
Here's a link to the video of the talk: https://youtu.be/DR4FIoOtjpU
Coming up next:
Jeremy Holt on artist Caspar David Friedrich next Wednesday 15 July.