Railway Town

I arrived at my brother’s late yesterday morning. He and his wife are back in the UK for 5 weeks, which for them is a long time.

They had things to do today, so I googled “”things to do in Swindon”. Top of the list was STEAM, the Museum of the Great Western Railway. So that’s where I headed.

The former GWR works were huge. In one area old buildings have been converted very cleverly into a big outlet designer mall. Then there is the STEAM museum itself, hugely impressive. Then other buildings have been converted into offices (Historic England’s and English Heritage’s HQ’s are here) and new buildings have been incorporated into the site - Heelis, the National Trust’s HQ, is especially good. Travelling through the Tunnel I arrived at the Railway village - terraced housing built for railway workers, and the Barracks for single men. The GWR park and church were provided as amenities, and the central community centre occupied what had been the Medical Fund Hospital. This latter provided the model upon which Aneurin Bevan built the new National Health Service in 1947.

So the blip image - one of many Seals of companies incorporated into the GWR network as it grew - is a tiny part of something huge.

I’ve added a few temporary extras.