3A, 3B, 4A and 4B, East Street

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

SU 1484 NE 6/73 SWINDON EAST STREET (west side) Nos. 3A and 3B, and 4A and 4B

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 two houses, now four flats, 1853-1854. For Great Western Railway Company. Ashlar limestone in white mortar. Rendered brick rear walls. Slate roofs with blue brick stacks on party walls. Two storey, nine bays entrances to third and seventh bays; glazed doors in chamfered surrounds under bracketed canopies, entry to rear in fifth bay under pointed segmental chamfered arch. Shouldered gables to third, fifth and seventh bays, and to returns in Reading and Oxford Streets. Sixteen-pane casement windows and single lights over openings. Extensively renovated c1974.

Listing NGR: SU1472184853