Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 28/04/2020

SU 1484 NE
6/139

SWINDON
READING STREET (north side)
Nos. 3 - 18 (consecutive)

17.2.70

GV
II
In order to house the workforce for the new Great Western Railway works, IK Brunel designed a new village to the south of the railway line. Brunel’s early layout drawings of 1840 show a grid similar to the final plan of 12 terraces in six blocks on either side of the High Street (from 1893 Emlyn Square). Construction started in 1842, and by 1855 most of the buildings had been completed. Houses and cottages of different types were built, as well as lodging houses. Brunel himself designed only the first block of 1842 (4-25 Bristol Street); as it was visible from the railway line, this is in a more decorative style than the others.

The financial difficulties of the contractors JD & C Rigby, who undertook to build 300 cottages but only completed 130, delayed the completion of the village until the 1850s. The cottages to the west of Emlyn Square were built first (1842-1843), followed by those on the east side (1845-1847). The end blocks towards Emlyn Square, containing corner shops on the ground floor, were built in 1845-1847, and the remainder, mostly end blocks on the outer ends of the streets, were built in 1853-1855. In 1966, the local authority acquired the cottages from British Rail and restored them. The village is one of Britain’s best-preserved and architecturally most ambitious railway settlements.

Terrace of sixteen cottages, 1846-1847 for Great Western Railway Company. Coursed squared rubble, ashlar door and window surrounds, coursed rubble rear walls. Slate roofs with brick stacks on party walls. Each dwelling two storey, one-bay with through side passage, two rooms deep. C20 brick rear lean-to. No yard walls. Low chamfered plinth. C20 fifteen-pane glazed doors with chamfered surrounds and splayed stops. Four-pane sashes also in chamfered surrounds. Extensively renovated c1974.

Listing NGR: SU1465284810

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26274499

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5