British Rail Engineering Limited: Swindon Works, No 12 Shop (V Shop), O And E Shop (32, 33 And 35 Shops)

Locomotive building works constructed in 1874, with extensions dating to around 1879, circa 1885, and 1924. The structure features an iron frame with red brick exterior walls, limestone ashlar, and yellow brick dressings. The roofs are multi-gabled Welsh slate with glazed clerestories and glazed timber-framed gable ends.

The building has a T-shaped plan. The front east-facing block extends 50 bays along its facade and comprises 8 bays deep to the south of the T-junction and 6 bays to the north. The broad stem of the T forms a single working space 24 bays long and 18 bays wide beneath 6 roofing ranges. The front range housed a brass foundry and turning shops at the southern end, machine shops for cylinders and frames flanking a wide entrance bay, and the hydraulic power centre with an accumulator tower at the northern end. The stem served as the locomotive erecting shop and boiler shop. The stem was broadened to the north by 8 bays (structurally 3, 3, and 2 bays respectively) around 1879, to the south by 6 bays circa 1885, and by 3 bays circa 1924. The west facade facing Rodbourne Road extends 30 bays and presents a long brick frontage with arched openings.

The exterior is one storey. The east facade is articulated by yellow brick semi-circular arches with limestone keys and impost mouldings. Segmental-arched windows are set within inner arches, above 20th-century windows and late 19th-century horned 10/10-pane sashes, with a moulded cornice. The 8-bay south end wall is similarly detailed. The north end wall was rebuilt in the 20th century. The 1924 extension on the south-facing facade is plain, with segmental-arched sashes and cast-iron casements with opening lights.

No 12 Shop (V Shop) contains cast-iron columns arranged in two tiers, the lower heavier ones carrying crane gantry beams and brackets for line shafting. These columns support a wrought-iron and glazed roof structure. A surviving 20-ton crane, now electrified with chain hoist, comprises an inverted iron structure. The remainder of the 1874 structure has two rows of cast-iron columns supporting wrought-iron roof construction. Each row contains 19 tall columns with large brackets designed to support travelling gantry cranes and pierced cast-iron girders spanning between the columns for fixing machinery and tools.

This building formed the centrepiece of the Great Western Railway's large-scale expansion of its works in the 1870s and represents an extremely impressive industrial structure of the period. It is one of an important group of Victorian industrial buildings at the GWR works. Hooters on the north-east side are claimed to have been those from the SS Great Britain.