DERELICT SUNDAY

We haven’t been out very much in the last few months, but when we have passed this old building on the way down from Old Town towards the town centre, each time I have remarked to Mr. HCB that it would be a good subject for Derelict Sunday.

We discussed going down there today and decided that as we have a Zoom Church service at 11 o’clock and then I have a Zoom Hen Party at 2 o’clock, for our friend, Ruth, who gets married on 1st May.  I’m not sure how that will work, but I’m sure we will have fun - so early this morning was the only time we could fit in a visit.

I was thinking about it late last night and because I couldn’t sleep, I was downstairs just before 1 o’clock this morning trying to find out more information about it, all to no avail.

When Mr. HCB brought me my early morning cup of coffee, I chatted with him about the building.  He said that in the early 1950s he used to visit what was a huge storage building next door, known locally as “The Knacker’s Yard”, where carcasses of animals were stored, to get his maggots before be went fishing.  He said he thought that the building I have photographed was possibly a garage for lorries and maybe they were used to transport the carcasses.  Apparently, he used to go in there, speak to whoever was on duty and was then allowed to go and scoop his tin inside the carcass, filling it with squirming maggots, all ripe and ready to be put on his fishing hook in the hope of catching some fish.

I remember walking past when I was younger and even when I used to walk up Drove Road hill to work, and there being an awful stench from the knacker’s yard - especially if the wind was blowing in a certain direction!

Just down the road was a large house called Grove House, which backs onto what is now Queen’s Park, at the back of which were three ponds where he had permission to fish.  These ponds were formed by taking clay out of the ground for brick production by a local brick manufacturer - more about that in a future blip!

So this building, where the graffiti artists have been busy and which is obviously not in a good state of repair, is fenced off with high fencing and a tarpaulin.  Looking at the top of it - and you can see this in my extra collage, masonry from the top is obviously falling, so it could be quite dangerous, as there is a pavement that runs on the outside of the fencing.  However, we aren’t sure whether the building will be repaired or demolished.  I might just ring the local Council to see what I can find out. 

You will see a house next door to the right, and this was where The Knacker’s Yard was situated.  Having worked for a Chartered Surveyor, I do wonder if there was some contamination of the ground, which would obviously have had to be sorted out before the house was built.

Interestingly, I found out the following about a knacker’s yard, which fits in with what Mr. HCB remembers, bearing in mind that there were a lot of farms on the outskirts of Swindon, many of which have been sold off for new housing to be built, which would have needed to use this facility:

"A knacker or knacker man, is a job title used for the centuries-old trade of persons responsible in a certain district for the removal and clearing of animal carcasses (dead, dying, injured) from private farms or public highways and rendering the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow (yellow grease), glue, gelatin, bone meal, bone char, sal ammoniac, soap, bleach and animal feed. A knacker's yard or a knackery is different from a slaughterhouse or abattoir, where animals are slaughtered for human consumption."

The rest of the collage shows the fencing around the building and also some beautiful aubretia on the outside garden wall of the “new” house.

A good morning’s work - now time for Church and then the Hen Party.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend - it’s a beautiful sunny day here, but there is still an edge to the wind.

“A ruin should always be protected 
     but never repaired - 
          thus may we witness full 
               the lingering legacies of the past.”
Walter Scott