Swindon - Part 1

The visit to Swindon arose from my earlier trip to Trowbridge. A glimpse of the clock outside the station as my train passed through led to thoughts of never having visited the town. So here we are, back in Wiltshire (although these days Swindon is a separate unitary authority so not technically in the shire county). In Part 1 we will look at the central area of the modern town, saving the Old Town and the outer reaches to Part 2.We start Part 1 with the Town Hall.The Town Hall is on Regent Circus at the southern end of the New Town – that is the new town that developed from the 1850’s with the coming of the railway. Swindon was built on the railway, with the huge works (mostly gone) that once dominated the town. The Town Hall was built in 1890. Its clock tower is 90 feet tall, which in a case of “my clock tower is bigger than yours” is deliberately greater than the 80 foot tower on the town hall in the Old Town. The building is now the home of Swindon Dance, a charity whose strapline…