Description

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

SU 1484 NW, SU 1484 NE
5/165 and 6/164

SWINDON
TAUNTON STREET (north side)
Nos. 1-23 (consecutive) and yard walls

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 24 cottages, 1843 for Great Western Railway Company. Coursed rubble limestone, slate roof with four-flue brick stacks on party walls. Two-storey. Nos. 1, 2 and 19 to 23, two bays, Nos. 3 to 18 single bay cottages, all two rooms deep with lean-to stair at rear. C20 additions in walled rear yards. Ground floor openings with segmental pointed brick arches, twelve-pane casements in deep painted reveals. 1970s door inset on splay with fifteen-paned light to left room in double units. Upper floor four-pane casements, all with stone sills. Rear walls of yards red brick with blue hogs-back copings and boarded gates. Identical to Nos. 5-27 Exeter Street (q.v.). Extensively renovated c1974.

Listing NGR: SU1455284689

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26495611

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)