The former Swindon Steam Laundry

MATERIALS: brick with painted Bath stone dressings and pitched slate roofs.

PLAN: the building occupies a corner site with Aylesbury Street, and has an L-shaped shaped footprint of two parallel blocks with gables facing Station Road. The single storey block to the east, was used from 1891 as the gas ironing and finishing room to the steam laundry. The two story block to the right incorporated the mangling, drying and ironing room, with the airing room and small women's mess and cloak room situated on the first floor.

EXTERIOR: the gabled left hand side of the main elevation facing Station Road has four bays, with segmental-headed windows with timber multi-pane casements (all windows are now boarded up) and decorative rectangular chamfered panels below. The gable above has a chamfered string outlining its triangular shape and a central keyed oculus for ventilation, the keys extended to meet at the centre. The left corner of the building is emphasised by a stone pilaster topped with a ball finial on a pedestal. The matching two storey right hand gable facing Station Road is also four bays wide, though taller and narrower. It has similar window and panel detailing to both floors, set between end pilasters, and a gable with a central oculus, again for ventilation. At ground floor level is a later inserted door.

The return elevation to the right has segmental-headed windows, now blocked at ground floor level, with the remainder blind with under the roof line painted letters which appear to read: 'THE SOUTHERN LAUNDRY'. A later window has been inserted at first floor level. The long single storey side elevation facing Aylesbury Street has eleven bays, with alternating shorter and taller segmental-headed windows, one of them converted into a loading bay.

To the rear, the left hand gable of the building shows evidence of earlier openings now blocked. The right hand gable, projecting further forward, has two large rectangular openings with late C20 metal shutters.

Please note that the line of the rear elevation as marked on our map may not be accurate, as the Ordnance Survey base map has not yet been updated to reflect the recent (2012) removal of the late C20 rear extension of the building.

INTERIOR: None of the machinery associated with (steam) laundering survives. The internal layout, predominately open plan, is intact, as indicated by the surviving late C19 floor plans. The rooms have open, wide span cast iron roofs, with a number of cast iron columns surviving at ground floor level in the former mangling, drying and ironing room.