The Swindon Works: A Case Study in Preserving History
As historians and lovers of history, there is nothing we value more than the preservation, restoration and, if possible, exhibition of historical artefacts. From big to small and intricate to simple; anything of historical relevance and importance to the memory of our ancestors should be kept safe and protected. But what if in doing so we change these artefacts? Would they lose some of their value or would it increase the incentive for others to conserve them? Join me as I investigate such questions with an intriguing example of living history: The former Great Western Railway Works of Swindon turned McArthur Glen Designer Outlet.
Figure 1 - The arrival of the train Ditcheat Manor at the Designer Outlet in August 2018 after having originally been built in Swindon in 1950.
But first some context will be needed with regard to Swindon, and the large impact the railway works had on the town. It all began with a very short man with a very tall hat and an equally long cigar: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. To say this man was larger than life would be an understatement; he was a genius engineer and workaholic who designed tunnels, bridges, steamships and railway lines. In 1833 he became the Chief Engineer of the Great Western Railway - GWR for short - which, under his leadership, would connect London and Bristol via train with the small market town of Swindon directly between. A decade later he decided that Swindon would be absolutely perfect for a GWR repair and maintenance facility, because of its flat land and connections via the canal. Local legend says that he decided the location of where he wanted ‘The Works’ by dropping his sandwich (or maybe he was just a bit clumsy and wanted an excuse).
Figure 2 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel standing in front of the launching chains of the steamship Great Eastern in 1857.
But Swindon was destined to have a much greater role in the already great Great Western Railway as its Superintendent of Locomotives David Gooch, opened up a locomotive factory in Swindon in 1846, and then in 1868 the market town was chosen to host a wagon and carriage works to boot. These decisions were of vital importance for Swindon and its future, as many other railway companies divided their factories along their entire tracks – as opposed to concentrating them all in a single place– meaning that when an economic downturn led to redundancies in the railway sector, the Swindon Works would continue whereas many others closed. This, accompanied by the failure of Brunel’s broad-gauge track and the ever-increasing popularity of the railway, led to plenty of work in Swindon, through train or shine the Works would continue to grow.
Figure 3 - Seven King Class Locomotives at the Swindon Works, where they had all been built, 1930
But the railway works did more than create jobs, it generated an entire community of thousands of workers and their families. A village was created and owned by the GWR next to their factories to accommodate the workers. It was built using the stone they dug from the creation of the two-mile-long Box Tunnel along with other amenities such as a school, a church and even a library in what became known as the ‘Mechanic’s Institute’. From 1871, each worker would have part of their pay deducted as part of a collective medical fund and in return doctors would prescribe them and their families various treatments, medications, surgeries and even artificial limbs created in the railway factories, acting as the first organisation in the world to do so and an ancestor to the modern-day National Health Service. Considering the danger of not only working in a Victorian factory but a factory where one of the country’s main railway lines separated your work from your house, having such a service was vital and between the years 1878 and 1913, over four thousand artificial limbs had been created for the many injured.
Just as the number of injured grew, the factories grew too, both in number and size. Encompassing over three hundred acres of ground, the site could have been a town in and of itself. What was referred to as the ‘A’ shop cost £33,000 (just over £3.4 million today) and opened in 1902 after two years of construction. This factory was 11.25 acres in size, or 45,500 metres squared, meaning it was one of the largest roofed areas in the entire world. Tim Bryan, the former Chairman of the Association of British Transport & Engineering Museums, described the ‘A’ shop as “one of the largest of its kind in the world … easily accommodating the largest engines the Great Western had.” For us what we are to focus is the site east of this massive monolith, those were the ‘P’ shop, the ‘V’ shop, the ‘W’ shop, the ‘Q’ shop, the ‘T’ shop, the ‘K’ shop and the ‘J’ shop, These shops had various necessary functions and were as follows; a Boiler Mounter, a Turner, a Fitter, an Ironsmith, a Brass Finisher, a Coppersmith and an Iron Foundry. In short, these shops created all the necessary tools and products needed for creating and maintaining luxury coaches and top-notch locomotives. As well as these many shops there was of course the Hooter house, which would control the giant hooter and hoot at various times of the day so the workers knew the time. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to this building, as the subject of this case study, as ‘the Swindon Works’ although that term is generally used in reference to the entire area of former GWR.
Figure 4 - An aerial photograph of the Swindon Works in 1987
Figure 5 - A panoramic view of what would become the Designer Outlet from 1985, combined using images from the BBC documentary ‘Requiem of a Railway: A Job For Life’
But such a rainy day when the Swindon factories would close did not seem close, when the Swindon Works opened in 1843 it employed 1.5 thousand people and by 1914, fourteen thousand people were employed in the factories. From office clerks to blacksmiths and carpenters, The Great Western Railway works in Swindon were creating, as is considered by many, to be some of the finest steam engines and carriages in the world with a considerable amount of time and effort being placed into each and every facet of their design, repair and completion. Despite this care for detail the Swindon Works still managed to create and repair one thousand train engines each year, along with the trains; all other finished goods that the GWR could have possibly needed were also created in Swindon. Not even the Germans could disrupt the progress at the Swindon factories, despite many men leaving for the fight, and the constant threat of bombing, the works continued and were even appropriated for the war effort – producing armaments, landing craft and even midget submarines, made with the extra help of women who joined the workforce as many of the men left.
Figure 6 - A map of the Great Western Railway Works in Swindon, c. 1940s
After the Second World War, the country was set for an almighty social change. Not only did the government adopt Swindon’s idea of a medical fund but they also took its railway, nationalising it in 1948 and transforming the Great Western Railway into the British Rail Western Region, definitely not as catchy but the traditions of the former lived on. More blows were to come for these factories as the days of the steam engine in Britain were coming to an end; the production of the locomotive ‘Evening Star’ in 1960 being the last for Swindon. The size and scale of the factories began to be reduced too, with the closure of the carriage and wagon works just two years later. Despite the creation of new train designs and a small upturn in the 1970s, it was decided by the government that the Swindon factory works were no longer needed, making the 26 of March 1986 the final day of operations, just days away from the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway.
“It was a life that you had to know to enjoy and it was something that was unique to us I suppose, there must be other places in the country with a similar sort of setup that we had in there but it was so self-contained, it was everything that the town ever wanted I suppose but things alter.”
Figure 5 - Graffiti presumably done by a GWR worker in Swindon, 1986
To say this was a devastating blow to Swindon would be an understatement; over two thousand people had lost their jobs - around seven hundred of those were people aged fifty or over - with many of them experiencing great difficulty in regaining employment. Just like the thousands unemployed, the 150 acres of industrial land they had worked on for generations in the heart of Swindon was now out of use too. British Rail had estimated the price of the land to be standing at £16 million (£45 million in 2024 money) and before the Works had even closed companies both local to Swindon and national, were already bidding for the various sites. These bidding wars and purchases led a giant transition into what has become of the vast GWR site today. ‘Steam: The Museum of the Great Western Railway’ opened in 2000, and is situated in one of the original engineering workshops dating from the 1840s and contains various machines, locomotives, and trinkets. Information regarding, coincidentally, the Great Western Railway, Historic England and English Heritage both share the site of the former general offices. The nucleus of the GWR works where many of its trains were designed, and other buildings have been converted into apartments or, unfortunately, destroyed for other uses, along with the ‘A’ shop. But, the most notable and important for us is what is now the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet.
Figure 8 - An annotated photograph of part of the former GWR site from 2019
Just eleven years after The Swindon Works had closed it had been drastically transformed from a factory into a shopping district which opened up to the public in March 1997. All of the various luxury shops that one could expect to see on a high street were in place, as is still the case today. It has over one hundred shops and fifteen restaurants; from coffee to candles, burgers to benches and sushi to shoes, all sold from within many former shops of the GWR. Many of the quirks and features of these various shops from metal door hooks to giant entrance ways can still be seen, even without a keen eye or knowledge of the factory many of these details are obvious. Along with the obvious, within the food court has sat various steam engines created in Swindon since the very opening of the shopping district, with the 1950 Ditcheat Manor currently on display after having previously been in the Steam Museum. Intertwined between all of this are various machines that once operated within the factory likely accompanied by a nearby sign providing interesting intel such as a walking crane outside Costa Coffee. As well as these there are also plaques from the early twentieth century dedicated to the men who had served and, sometimes died, in the service of their country in both the First and the Second World Wars.
Figure 9 - Former workers of the Swindon Works on parade in 1997 for the opening of the Designer Outlet
But, just as the site had continued to develop for the means of the GWR, the Designer Outlet today continues to do the same. Another phase of development for the shopping centre began just two years after it opened and a few decades later the company McArthur Glen acquired the site in an eye-watering £600 million deal, and, apparently being allergic to money, they spent another £40 million on an extension. This consisted of a new attachment to the original factory building, unlike it in both style and material make-up, but it nonetheless served the purpose of creating extra space for customers. Despite the decline in the popularity of the high street, millions of customers still visit the site each year, meaning such large investments must certainly be worth it from an economic perspective but what about from a historical perspective? Has this endeavour been a success in preserving the rich local history of Swindon and commemorating the generations of its people who toiled, sweet, and bled in what was once one of the largest factory establishments in Europe?
Figure 10 - A view of the former ‘L2’ shop, also known as the Tank shop, along with an overhead crane, inside the Designer Outlet.
Well many local residents certainly believe the Designer Outlet has accomplished these goals. In an interview I had with Nick Wingfield, a lifelong Swindon resident whose father got an apprenticeship in the Works and someone who works in the area close to the Designer Outlet, he said this was certainly the case. Regarding this he stated that: “the one thing that Swindon has done well is the Designer Outlet … the fact that they’ve actually taken it, repurposed it into a retail place … doing that is great and it’s a lovely place to walk round.” Nick expressed his delight in how the Designer Outlet brings thousands more people to Swindon than would otherwise be the case, even if they do not walk around and enjoy the history as he does. In comparing the Designer Outlet to other shopping centres he said “it’s not just another mall … it has historical merit and architectural merit and I think that … If Swindon’s done anything right it’s that.” Adding onto this, Angela Atkinson, another local resident, created an article in 2013 regarding the shopping centre and expressed her love for these changes to a popular and in-demand industry, writing:
‘Instead of a slow disintegration allowed by demolition, the workshops of the Great Western Railway are recycled, revitalised and regenerated. And in a way that has retained the character of the workshops. The original industrial use of the buildings is clear. Whenever I stroll around and look at the beams, the bits of machinery and the engine in the food court, my thoughts turn to the men and women who worked so grindingly hard within these walls.’
Figure 11 - A walking crane from the machine shop in the 1880s
Figure 12 - the same walking crane in the Designer Outlet c.2020s
But not everyone agrees that this is indeed a positive development for the former shops of the GWR, one of those being Rory Cranstoun. Rory works for a media company based in Swindon and, after exploring the shopping centre and eating lunch there, was disturbed by what he saw. In two separate articles expressing his concerns, Rory described his unease at how a place that had been so localised and unique to Swindon, where generations of people for nearly 150 years had lived and worked and was inextricable to its communities and culture had now turned into somewhere centred on global brands and commercialism, completely out of place and out of time, with his description creating many parallels between the retail outlet and Frankenstein’s monster. His perspective is certainly sympathetic; where once an iron foundry had existed that created the various necessities for the trains, carriages and wagons of the Great Western Railway, a Kentucky Fried Chicken now sits, one of 25,000 restaurants that operate in over 145 countries. As Rory put it: “they could exist anywhere in the world.” He goes on to describe the vast majority of people who visit the place as simply “Nowhere people,” who do not walk around the building thinking “Who forged these spars? Who hammered this rivet? Who laid these tracks?”, all culminating in the moment when he spotted a plaque to the fallen:
“When I saw a list - a simple list of English names, men born in Swindon, who had toiled and sweated within these same walls and died in foreign fields. For these moments, amid the clueless hordes of Nowhere-People with their Nike gear and KFC dinners, Callum [his colleague] and I were the only ones who understood the ground on which we stood. It was ground in time, not some phase space within a book … this was an island - the island of the Old World, visited by a thinning few.”
Figure 13 - Railway wheels of various sizes on top of a track opposite a clothing shop in the Designer Outlet, c,1990s
These were certainly intriguing points but there is an inevitable question that arises: what would be the alternative? These former seven shops of the GWR and their adjacent land encompassed many acres that would have required a large amount of money to maintain. Including this, the site itself was not entirely fit for purpose as lots of material and equipment had been left such as coke and slag, which led to underground fires, and even animals including a unique species of sparrow, were living in the various buildings of the former GWR. An easy answer to this question would have been to destroy it, as other smaller buildings on the site were, and redevelop the land. This solution would have solved Rory’s unease with the discrepancy between place and time. However, for many other lovers of history and local Swindonians, such a solution would be catastrophic. Another alternative would be perhaps converting it into an even larger museum that the current Steam Museum, but with this there too are many problems. Firstly, it took fourteen years for a museum on the site to be created and no doubt a much larger time period would be required considering the size of the Swindon Works. Secondly, British museums are currently facing substantial financial problems with 467 already closing since the start of the millennium. The maintenance and electricity costs alone for the building may very well be enough to close these former shops if it were converted into a museum. Other museums around the UK such as the Black Country Living Museum and Beamish Museum have made such an endeavour work on a large scale but these are unfortunately the exception and not the rule, there would be no guarantee for the success in converting this magnificent monument into a museum. In fact, the Steam Museum hosts many non-history related events such as Comic-Con, local markets and even a tattoo festival, in all likelihood to make the endeavour of preserving GWR’s history economically viable.
Figure 14 - An advertisement for a tattoo festival hosted by the Steam Museum
Another alternative could be to turn the building into private accommodation or a set of offices but this would require massive development, along with the likely destruction of some of the building and any history contained within the building being out of purview to the public. This, however, would come with a major advantage, one that the Designer Outlet currently has: it would be commercially viable, creating funds for the continual maintenance of the building and funding for its preservation. But, unlike this possibility, the current retail outlet also has the advantage of access for the general public, and to go even further, access by the general public is encouraged. In essence, the Designer Outlet has the advantages of both a museum and private accommodation/offices as it has general access and the ability to fund itself without relying on external sources of revenue without the accompanying drawbacks. No train, no gain.
The Designer Outlet is certainly one of the most unusual buildings I have ever seen, it’s amalgamation of the historical and the modern is unlike any other. Where once men of the GWR created some of the finest trains and carriages ever to take to the rails, meticulously crafted and cared for with every screw and bolt perfectly in place, now exists a shopper’s heaven where every amenity one could think of is present and catered for by its many shops, leaving plaques, machines and artefacts to signify the workers who came before. It is certainly a weird change but one that signifies the continuation of time and the old world being replaced by the new. It would be lovely, as I’m sure that Rory would agree, if the old factory had never closed but that sadly was not viable, if The Works had not closed in March 1986, it most likely would have done at some point shortly afterwards. Transforming the Swindon Works into the McArther Glen Designer Outlet may have been the only way to make the gigantic space economically viable for the buildings’ preservation,and with a museum dedicated to its history just a few hundred metres away, it seems that this has possibly been the best outcome for keeping Swindon’s history alive.
Figure 15 - The arrival of the train Ditcheat Manor at the Designer Outlet in August 2018 after having originally been built in Swindon in 1950
By Brandon Fisher
Bibliography
Images
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Figure 7 - Requiem for a Railway: Off the Rails. BBC Documentary. 1985. Accessed 25/07/2024. (Original recording on the BBC Archive is unavailable). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxyetLsE9s&list=PLBVR2pkKSzCqA5cS1dBlu4z-5kBcTVlvc&index=2
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Figure 10 - Swindon Designer Outlet. Expedia. Accessed 27/07/2024. https://www.expedia.co.uk/Swindon-Designer-Outlet-Swindon.d6150824.Attraction
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Figure 12 - Swindon Designer Outlet. Expedia. Accessed 27/07/2024. https://www.expedia.co.uk/Swindon-Designer-Outlet-Swindon.d6150824.Attraction
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Figure 14 - Instagram – Brandn_Fisher
Figure 15 - Snapped: Swindon Designer Outlet Train Move. TotalSwindon. 22/08/2018. Accessed 15/07/2024. https://www.totalswindon.com/community/snapped-swindon-designer-outlet-train-move/
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