21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1199353
Date first listed:: 17-Feb-1970
List Entry Name:: 21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS
Statutory Address:: 21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS

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Date:: 2001-05-20
Reference:: IOE01/04107/31
Rights:: © Dr Robert Slade. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1199353
Date first listed:: 17-Feb-1970
List Entry Name:: 21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS
Statutory Address 1:: 21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS

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:: 21-36, Reading Street, Swindon, SN1 5BS

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 14698 84808

Details

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

SU 1484 NE 6/142

SWINDON READING STREET (south side) Nos. 21 - 36 (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 door and window surrounds, coursed rubble rear walls. Slate roofs with brick stacks on party walls. Each dwelling of two-storey one bay with through side passage, two rooms deep. C20 brick rear lean-to. Low chamfered plinth. C20 fifteen-pane glazed doors with chamfered surrounds and splayed stops. Four-pane sashes also in chamfered surrounds. Similar to 3-18 Reading Street. Extensively renovated c1974.

Listing NGR: SU1466384784

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 318804
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cattell, J, Falconer, K, Swindon: The Legacy of a Railway Town (RCHME), (1995), 44, 54-55
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.