Swindon

• Swindon Local Studies Collection holds a number of useful resources for family historians. After various temporary homes it is now in its permanent location in a new building - Swindon Central Library, Regent Circus, Swindon. They have an online collection of photos on Flickr - see Description and Travel, below.
• The National Monuments Record Centre in Swindon, presently under the Days Out section of English Heritage, has collections covering the nation's archaeology, buildings and maritime sites. The Centre is on the Great Western Village, off Kemble Drive. It is a short walk from Swindon railway station, and ten minutes from Junction 16 of the M4. NMR Public Services, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ. There is also a Public Search Room at 55 Blandford Street, London W1H 3AF. Note that the National Monuments Record suggests you contact them before visiting, most searches are done in advance of visits.
• Images of England, part of the National Monuments Record, is building a digital library of photographs of England's 370,000 Listed Buildings. Text and images will be available on their site in 2002 - and many thousands are there now for you to view.

• Common to all parishes is a Church Records and Indexes for Wiltshire, including a complete Marriage Index for the county.
• Churches listed here are those where we know about indexes to registers, generally churches started before 1837. There are more churches with registers - see National Index of Parish Registers.
• Indexes and registers of the parish church of Swindon, Christchurch: (Christ Church was built in 1851, and the former parish church of Holy Rood at The Lawn was demolished then)
  • WSRO registers: Chr 1623-1975, Mar 1624-1988, Bur 1623-1992
  • BTs before surviving registers for 1589-91, 1606-09, 1619-23
  • IGI Mar 1623-1754 Batch M153351
  • VRI Chr 1623-1844, Mar 1623-1754
  • White Horse Baptisms 1623-1837
  • Wiltshire Index Service Burials 1800-1837
• Indexes and registers of the parish church of Swindon (or New Swindon), St Mark:
  • WSRO registers: Chr 1845-1966, Mar 1846-1990, Bur 1845-1881
  • IGI Chr 1845-1874 Batch C054661 (as New Swindon, St Marks)
• Indexes and registers of Swindon, Wesleyan Circuit:
  • Registers at PRO, piece RG4 2065, 2629
  • IGI Chr 1817-1856 Batch C078001
• Indexes and registers of Swindon, Independent church at Newport Street:
  • Registers at PRO, piece RG4 2243
  • IGI Chr 1804-1837 Batch C077991

• Swindonweb has descriptions and history of the Old Town and of the Railway village (New Swindon) and has good old photographs of the area.
• Swindon Local Studies has published their collection of Swindon Photos on Flickr, with an Index of Tags and a Map.
• British Pathe films of Swindon
  Newsreel film clips from 1918 to 1969, some railway related, some military related, some municipal, some quirky. Clips can be viewed free, but the web pages also have unrelated advertisements.

• Description in 1830:

  Swindon is a market town in the hundred of Kingsbridge, eighty miles from London, thirty-eight from Salisbury, nineteen from Devizes, and eleven from Marlborough; pleasantly seated on the banks of the Wilts and Berks canal, by which navigation the trade of this place is much facilitated; - Mr William Dunsford, whose residence is at the Wharf, is the superintendent. Adjoining the church yard is a fine spring of water, which turns a corn mill within fifty yards of its source; and about a mile and a half south of the town is a reservoir, covering upwards of seventy acres, for supplying the canal. The population of the entire parish, according to the census of 1821, consisted of 1,580 inhabitants. [Extract from Pigot & Co's National Commercial Directory for Cornwall, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire and Wiltshire, 1830]

• Geograph
• Flickr

• A transcription of the section for Swindon from the National Gazetteer (1868).
• The entry for Swindon from A Vision of Britain through time.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Swindon to another place.

• The entry for Swindon from British History Online.
• A Brief History of Swindon written and provided by Tim Lambert on his Local Histories site.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SU156835 (Lat/Lon: 51.55004, -1.776524), Swindon which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

• Wiltshire Family History Society

You can also see Family History Societies covering the nearby area, plotted on a map. This facility is being developed, and is awaiting societies to enter information about the places they cover.