18a-18e, Emlyn Square

18a-18e, Emlyn Square, Swindon, SN1 5BN

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1023495
Date first listed:: 23-Apr-1986
List Entry Name:: 18a-18e, Emlyn Square
Statutory Address:: 18a-18e, Emlyn Square, Swindon, SN1 5BN

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Date:: 2001-05-29
Reference:: IOE01/04341/20
Rights:: © Dr Robert Slade. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1023495
Date first listed:: 23-Apr-1986
List Entry Name:: 18a-18e, Emlyn Square
Statutory Address 1:: 18a-18e, Emlyn Square, Swindon, SN1 5BN

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 18a-18e, Emlyn Square, Swindon, SN1 5BN

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Swindon (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: South Swindon
National Grid Reference:: SU 14523 84801

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 23/04/2020

SU 1484 NE 6/87

SWINDON EMLYN SQUARE No. 18a- 18e

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.

House, now flats. 1845-1846 for Great Western Railway Company. Coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins. Slate roof. Three storey corner block with one-bay to Emlyn Square and two-bay return to Bristol Street, corner splayed. Entrance in two storey extension. Chamfered stone quoined window surrounds, twenty-pane casements to ground floor, sixteen-pane above, and eight-pane on splay, all having label moulds. Keyed oeils de boeuf in each gable. All as No. 15 Emlyn Square (q.v.) but return to Bristol Street.

Listing NGR: SU1452284798

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 318749
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cattell, J, Falconer, K, Swindon: The Legacy of a Railway Town (RCHME), (1995), 44, 56-59
Hudson, K, Transport History
Large, F , Swindon Retrospect 1855-1930, (1931)
Peck, A , The Great Western at Swindon Works, (1983)
Silto, J , A Swindon History 1840-1901

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.