The Mechanics' Institute
THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, EMLYN SQUARE
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1198947
- Date first listed:
- 17-Feb-1970
- List Entry Name:
- The Mechanics' Institute
- Statutory Address:
- THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, EMLYN SQUARE
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2007-07-10
- Reference:
- IOE01/16838/20
- Rights:
- © Tim Belcher. Source: Historic England Archive
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Official list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1198947
- Date first listed:
- 17-Feb-1970
- List Entry Name:
- The Mechanics' Institute
- Statutory Address 1:
- THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, EMLYN SQUARE
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
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.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, EMLYN SQUARE
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 14580 84781
Details
SU 1484 NE
1097/6/90
SWINDON,
EMLYN SQUARE,
The Mechanics' Institute
17.02.70
GV
II*
Former Mechanics' Institute, at present vacant. 1853-1855 by Edward Roberts of London. Considerably enlarged 1892-1893 by Brightwen Binyon.
Limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings. Two-storey with raised central hall/theatre. Gothic Revival style. Ground floor: library and reading room, coffee room, mess room and baths, with entrance to north, facing works, and rear octagonal market hall opened 1855, now replaced. Ground floor triple entrances, painted segmental heads between buttresses, all in two-storey forebuilding. Cross windows above. Links to octagonal crenellated corner towers with slated spires and louvred lantern, the towers returning to square at ground level, and having Tudor-arched lights. Clocks in parapets. Behind forebuilding large Perpendicular style window to hall gable. Side buttresses and triple lights. Flat roofed attached single storey side buildings later in date, with Tudor glazing and entrance. Hipped slated corner canopies on bracketed cast-iron columns. Octagonal flanking lantern towers at south end of hall.
Major enlargement to south, 1892, in Jacobethan style. Coursed rock-faced rubble and slate roofs. Two-storey, two-bay end gables with Tudor three-light windows and carved quatrefoil in gables. Three-bay recessed centre with central Tudor door and recessed glazed gallery at first floor level. Four-light dormers and louvred lantern. Side elevations with projecting gable and hall with chamfered two-storey Tudor style windows; four dormers each side. Central theatre fly tower of 1930, built following a fire.
INTERIOR. In later section, in addition to various large rooms, an imposing five-bay reading room, with segmental vaulted ceiling and part-panelled walls. Theatre dressing rooms over. In earlier part, the first-floor assembly hall/theatre 76ft x 40ft with moulded plaster decorative frieze and vaulted ceiling. Stage with proscenium arch a semi-circular replacement of 1930, with moulded archivolt in art-deco style. Curving balcony with decorative front. (Original plan in The Builder, 1st July 1854).
HISTORY. This institute, which is the major architectural feature at the heart of Swindon Railway Village, is of considerable historic significance both for the mode of formation and for the range, importance and influence of the various facilities provided. The GWR set up a separate company, the New Swindon Improvement Co., as a workers' welfare venture, to build an institute, shops and market stalls all in one, fresh produce not being easily available. The original market stalls were demolished in 1891 to make room for the large addition which is itself a visible expression of the impressive breadth of the institute's work for over a 100 years. An extensive range of classes and lectures were provided for both men and women, and technical education was particularly important, this being harmonised with the progress of apprentices and students through the railway works itself. This institute also appears to be a unique survivor of one associated with a railway company.
BIBLIOGRAPHY :
Transport History (K Hudson); Swindon Retrospect 1855-1930 (F Large), 1931; The Great Western at Swindon Works (A Peck), 1983; A Swindon History 1840-1901 ( J Silto); The Builder, 1 July, 1854; Swindon: the Legacy of a Railway Town O Cattell and K Falconer), 1995; New Swindon Mechanics' Institution Preservation Trust, Lecture by T Cockbill, 1997.
Listing NGR: SU1458084781
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 318752
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Large, F, Swindon Retrospect 1855-1930, (1931)
Peck, A, The Great Western at Swindon Works, (1983)
Silto, J, A Swindon History 1840-1901, ()
Hudson, K, Transport History, ()
Cattell, J, Falconer, K, Swindon: The Legacy of a Railway Town (RCHME), (1995)
The Builder in 1 July, (1854)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 23-Jun-2026 at 18:57:35.
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