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Wiltshire |
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 Nearby places |
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Swindon is a borough 34 miles North of Salisbury. Grid Ref SU157839 for Old Town. Postcode SN1 3HE. Population 1,742 in 1831, 68,953 in 1951. The railway works established at New Swindon in 1842 led to expansion from a small market town to the largest industrial town of Wiltshire.
Swindon Local Studies Library holds a number of useful resources for family hisorians.
The National Monuments Record Centre in Swindon, see the "Understanding the Past" section of English Heritage, has collections covering the nation's archaeology, buildings and maritime sites. The Centre is on the Great Western Village, off Kemble Drive. It is a short walk from Swindon railway station, and ten minutes from Junction 16 of the M4. NMR Public Services, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ. Phone 01793 414600, fax 01793 414606. There is also a Public Search Room at 55 Blandford Street, London W1H 3AF; phone 020 7208 8200, fax 020 7224 5333. Note that the National Monuments Record suggests you contact them before visiting, most searches are done in advance of visits.
Images of England, part of the National Monuments Record, is building a digital library of photographs of England's 370,000 Listed Buildings. Text and images will be available on their site in 2002 - and many thousands are there now for you to view.
Common to all parishes is a key to abbreviations and a description of church records and indexes for Wiltshire.
Churches listed here are those where we know about indexes to registers, generally churches started before 1837. There are more churches with registers - see National Index of Parish Registers
Indexes and registers of the parish church of Swindon. This is now Christ Church; this church was built in 1851, and the former parish church of Holy Rood at The Lawn was demolished then.
Indexes and registers of the parish church of Swindon (or New Swindon), St Mark
Indexes and registers of the Wesleyan circuit of Swindon
Indexes and registers of the Independent church at Newport Street, Swindon
Swindonweb has descriptions and history of the Old Town and of the Railway village (New Swindon) and has good old photographs of the area. There are also images of the Railway Village and some history of it on The GWR (Great Western Railway) Connection page of the Bevington family.
Description in 1830
"Swindon is a market town in the hundred of Kingsbridge, eighty miles from London, thirty-eight from Salisbury, nineteen from Devizes, and eleven from Marlborough; pleasantly seated on the banks of the Wilts and Berks canal, by which navigation the trade of this place is much facilitated; - Mr William Dunsford, whose residence is at the Wharf, is the superintendent. Adjoining the church yard is a fine spring of water, which turns a corn mill within fifty yards of its source; and about a mile and a half south of the town is a reservoir, covering upwards of seventy acres, for supplying the canal. The population of the entire parish, according to the census of 1821, consisted of 1,580 inhabitants." (From Pigot & Co's National Commercial Directory for Cornwall, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire and Wiltshire, 1830)
A brief history of Swindon written and provided by Tim Lambert on his Local Histories site.
