West along Fleming Way, Swindon

Image: © Brian Robert Marshall Taken: 20 Dec 2009

Fleming Way is built on the line of a long-gone canal, the Wiltshire and Berkshire, which once ran through the heart of Swindon. Parts of it still exist outside the town and restoration is an ongoing project http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/496686 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1099315 and http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1362014 Thirty odd years ago at this viewpoint the view would have been quite different. Fleming Way was there but the residential block to the right wasn't. Instead you would have seen a row of rather jerry-built cottages that were demolished in what was the last of the clearance areas to be made in Swindon under the Housing Acts in about 1980. At the left was a large factory, Garrards, whose frontage came to the edge of Fleming Way and which would have obscured Jury's hotel just to the left of centre if it had been there, which it wasn't, as it was only completed in 2009 on the site of a Ford dealership. The office block further to the left would also have been lost to view although it may have been there then. It certainly looks 1970s in appearance. It is home to the Benefits Agency, formerly DSS, DHSS or simply 'the social'.

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