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Swindon is a large town in the South West of England. Swindon lies on the M4 Corridor between Bristol and London. The town is easily accessible from either junction 15 or 16 of the M4 motorway, or by rail using Swindon station. With a population of over 160,000, Swindon is often cited as a "boom town" and new housing continues to be built, especially to the west of the town. It is one of the fastest growing towns in Europe, with a low unemployment rate. It is in the borough of Swindon, which has been a unitary authority (UA) since 1998.

A resident of Swindon is known as a Swindonian. Swindon's motto is "Salubritas et Industria" (Health and Industry).

History

The original Saxon settlement of Swindon sat in a defensible position atop a limestone hill. It is referred to in the Domesday Book as Suindune, a name believed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon words swine and dun meaning literally pig hill, or possibly Sweyn's hill where Sweyn would be the local landlord. Swindon remained a small market town, used mainly for barter trade, until the mid-1800s. This original market area of Swindon is located on top of the hill in central Swindon and is now known as Old Town.

The industrial revolution was responsible for an acceleration of Swindon's growth. It started with the construction of the Wiltshire and Berkshire canal in 1810, and then the North Wiltshire canal in 1819. These two major routes brought trade to the area, and Swindon's population started to rise.

Probably the most significant event in Swindon's history occurred in 1840, when it was selected to house the large Swindon railway works for the Great Western Railway by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Legend has it that Brunel and his assistant were surveying the route of the London to Bristol line, and had stopped on a hillside for lunch. The assistant asked Brunel where he thought the railway works should be built, and Brunel threw a sandwich in the air, declaring that it would be wherever the sandwich landed. Reality is more mundane - it was situated at a point where engines would need to be changed. Eastwards towards London the line was gently graded, while westwards there was a steep descent towards Bath. Swindon was also at the junction of a proposed line to Gloucester.

Construction of the works was completed in 1842. Along with the railway works a small railway village was created to house some of the railway workers. This area became the present day area known as New Town (or the Town Centre). The original Railway Village houses are still standing and are occupied, and several of the original buildings which comprised the engineering works also remain (though many are vacant). The Steam Railway Museum now occupies part of the old works.

In the second half of the 19th century the new area (Swindon New Town) created by the railway works and the original area from the market trading years (Swindon Old Town) were merged to become Swindon.

During much of the 20th century the railway works was the largest employer in the town. In the late-1970s however, a large part of the works closed.

Geography and climate

The town itself has a total area of approximately 39.70 km² (25.33 mi²). The unitary authority (created in 1996 as the 'Borough of Thamesdown', but renamed in 1997 as the Borough of Swindon) has a much larger area as it encompasses surrounding villages and land. The town is therefore no longer under the auspices of Wiltshire County Council.

Swindon has a temperate climate, with roughly equal length winters and summers. The surrounding landscape is dominated by the chalk hills of the WIltshire Downs to the south and east.

• (51°33′51″N 1°46′15″W / 51.56417°N 1.77083°W / 51.56417; -1.77083)
• grid reference SU150850
• Nearby towns and cities: Calne, Chippenham, Wootton Bassett, Cirencester, Cricklade, Highworth, Marlborough
• Nearby villages: Aldbourne, Blunsdon, Chiseldon, Hook, Lambourn, Liddington, Lydiard Millicent, Purton, Ramsbury, Wanborough, Wroughton
• Nearby places of interest: Avebury, Barbury Castle, Crofton Pumping Station, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge

Demographics

As of the census of 2001 , there were 180,051 people and 75,154 occupied houses in the Swindon Unitary Authority. The average household size was 2.38 people. The population density was 780/km² (2020.19/mi²). 20.96% of the population were 0 to 15 years old, 72.80% were 16 to 74 years old, and the remaining 6.24% were 75 years old or over. For every 100 females there were 98.97 males.

The ethnic makeup of the town was 95.2% white, 1.3% Indian, and 3.5% other. Of the population, 92.4% were born in the UK, 2.7% in the EU, and 4.9% elsewhere in the world.

Swindon is considered to be an almost exact microcosm of the whole United Kingdom in its demographic makeup, to the extent that it has often been used for market research purposes and trials of new products and services. One example was the ill-fated Mondex electronic money.

Business

Major employers include the Honda car production plant at South Marston, BMW in Stratton, mobile phone companies such as Motorola and Ubinetics and the retailer W H Smith which has its distribution centre and headquarters in Swindon. The computer company Intel also has its European head office on the south side of the town. Several insurance and financial services companies such as Nationwide Building Society and Zurich Financial Services, and pharmaceutical companies such as Patheon and Cardinal Health also have head offices in the town.

Tourism and recreation

McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, a shopping complex built within the disused Swindon railway engine works.

• The Brunel Centre is a shopping mall in the town centre. There are also a number of High Street Reatailers in the Town Centre. The parade is another area of the town centre shopping.
• There are a number of retail parks such as Greenbridge,West Swindon Shopping Cenre,Stratton,Orbital Shopping Park.
• McArthur Glen Designer Outlet is a well-designed undercover shopping mall for reduced price designer goods, tastefully built using the structure of the disused railway engine works. The outlet is adjacent to the Steam Museum.
• Swindon has a large roundabout surrounded by several smaller roundabouts known as the "Magic Roundabout" (which became the main subject of a song by the local band XTC).
• There are two leisure centres, 'The Link Centre' and 'The Oasis'.
• The Football League Two team Swindon Town F.C. play in Swindon, at the County Ground.
• Broome Manor Golf Complex is a golf course set against the backdrop of the Marlborough Downs.
• Public parks include Lydiard Country Park, Stanton Park, Barbury Castle, Queens Park and Coate Water.
• Shaw Community Forest, being developed on the site of a former landfill site in West Swindon.
• The National Monuments Record Centre (NMRC), the home of English Heritage.

Media

• BBC Radio Swindon is a local radio station for the Borough of Swindon.
• BBC Wiltshire Sound is a radio station for the Wiltshire.
• GWR FM (Swindon) is a commercial radio station for Swindon and Wiltshire.
• The Swindon Advertiser is the local daily newspaper for Swindon, the Borough of Swindon and settlements close to the Borough.

Education

• New College and Swindon College are both providers of higher education.
• The 'University of Bath in Swindon' was established in 2000, with its Oakfield Campus in Walcot, East Swindon.

Museums and cultural institutions

• Museum of Computing is based at Oakfield Campus, University of Bath in Swindon, Marlowe Avenue.
• National Museum of Science & Industry, Wroughton
• Railway Village Museum
• Richard Jefferies Museum is dedicated to the memory of one of England's most individual writers on nature and the countryside.
• Steam Railway Museum
• Swindon Arts Centre is the home of the Swindon art scene.
• Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

Trivia

• Approximately 300,000 people live within 20 minutes of Swindon town centre.
• The critically-acclaimed rock band XTC are from Swindon and, since their inception in 1977, are widely regarded as one of the most quintessentially 'English' rock-pop band since The Kinks.
• Noel Gallagher, the lead singer of the rock band Oasis chose the name of his band after visiting the Oasis swimming pool in Swindon (whilst working as a roadie for the band Inspiral Carpets, who themselves held a concert at the leisure centre in 1993).
• The British television comedy series The Office contains many references to Swindon.
• Swindon is referred to in singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock's song Ride.
• Swindon is twinned with Ocotal, Nicaragua; Salzgitter, Germany and Torun, Poland.
• The infamous chode Richard Dewdney came from old town in Swindon.
• Swindon also has close ties with Chattannooga, USA, with which it started a friendship and cooperation agreement in 2006.
• More people have joined the Hare Krishna movement in Swindon than in any other English town.

Sport

• Swindon Town F.C., a football team who play in Football League Two (upon their relegation from League One in May 2006).
• Swindon Wildcats, an ice hockey team.
• Swindon Robins, a speedway team who compete in the Elite League.

Swindon in fiction

Books set in Swindon include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (in which the main character's father describes it as "the arsehole of the world") and the Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, Sherlock Holmes, also ate lunch in the town in the novel The Boscombe Valley Mystery.

Robert Goddard's Into the Blue and Out of the Sun both feature the central character of Harry Barnett from Swindon, and both novels start in the town. The TV detective series A Touch of Frost starring David Jason is often set in or around Swindon (called "Denton" in the series) and early episodes feature briefings of the detective team in front of recognisable maps of the Swindon area.

James Bond

• Two James Bond films have used Swindon for scenes .
  • The former Renault building in West Swindon was used in A View to a Kill (released 1985).
  • The futuristic Motorola production plant in Abbey Meads was used for a setting in The World Is Not Enough (released 1999).
• James Bond author Ian Fleming is buried at Sevenhampton.

Further reading

• Swindon, Mark Child, Breedon Books, 2002, hardcover, 159 pages, ISBN 1859833225
• Francis Frith's Swindon Living Memories (Photographic Memories S.), Francis Frith and Brian Bridgeman, The Frith Book Company Ltd, 2003, Paperback, 96 pages, ISBN 1859376568

See also

• List of places in Swindon

External links

• Swindon.gov.uk — official Borough Council website
• Swindon Advertiser — local newspaper
• Swindon Link Magazine
• SwindonWeb
• Talk Swindon — Web forum for discussing Swindon issues
• Visit Swindon — official tourism website

• Swindon
• Towns in Wiltshire
• Railway towns in England