Swindon Railway Village
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Swindon Railway Village by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Swindon Railway Village
Image: © Marathon Taken: 16 Jun 2011
When the Great Western Railway opened its main railway works at Swindon in 1843, most staff came from outside the area as there was no heavy engineering tradition in North Wiltshire. The old town of Swindon could not cope with the influx so the GWR built the Railway Village. This was an estate of 300 houses for its staff. The village was finally completed in the 1860s, and although the accommodation was better than industrial houses elsewhere, many of the cottages soon became overcrowded. Most of the roads were named after places on the GWR. This is Reading Street.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.562249
Longitude
-1.788902