Central Community Centre, Central, Swindon

Summary

Community centre, the central block built in 1862 as the Armoury for the Great Western Railway works; converted to create a hospital for GWR workers, incorporating flanking workers’ cottages in 1871; converted to community centre after 1960. Rear range built in 1975 to replace earlier rear extensions.

Description

MATERIALS: limestone ashlar central range, coursed Swindon stone rubble for flanking ranges; slate roofs.

PLAN: the building has a large, central hall, flanked by former cottages, with reordered plans. A narrower range runs parallel along the rear of the whole.

EXTERIOR: the building is of two storeys and nine window bays. Windows are a mixture of horned and hornless sashes. The central section, originally constructed as the armoury and drill hall, is in limestone ashlar, with three window bays, all windows and doors under hood moulds. The central entrance has C20 multi-paned double doors, flanked by eight-over-eight sashes. The first-floor windows above are six-over-six sashes, and between them, a carved scroll inscribed MEDICAL FUND HOSPITAL. Below this, applied later-C20 lettering for CENTRAL COMMUNITY CENTRE. The shallow parapet roof has shaped kneelers. The range has rectangular gable end stacks, with diamond-set shafts. The flanking ranges, formerly GWR workers’ cottages, are constructed from coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings, each have a central doorway with C20 multi-paned doors, flanked by one tripartite window with chamfered stone mullions, and one eight-over-eight sash window. Above are eight-over-eight and ten-over-ten sashes. Each former cottage has gable end stacks with diagonal set shafts to match those to the main range. The left return is blind apart from a doorway to left. The right return has paired sash windows to each of the ground and first floors, towards the rear. The rear range, largely built in 1975, is single-storey and has a lower, pitched roof, to allow for the rear first-floor windows in the main range. The returns are constructed in coursed limestone rubble, with the rear wall completed in reconstituted North Cerney stone. Windows are tripartite sashes.

INTERIOR: the main hall is full height, a single space which was originally the drill hall, with inserted suspended ceiling. A window in the wall between the hall and the former cottage to the west allowed observation of the hospital ward by medical staff. The former cottages to either side have been largely reordered for their subsequent uses, with an altered plan form. The layout of the rear range reflects its construction in 1975 for use with the community centre, for which it houses the service areas. The buildings in the main range have C19 king post roofs.

History

The Great Western Railway works in Swindon were established in 1841, to provide a central repair facility for the various locomotives which had been sourced to run on the railway line from London to Bristol, whose construction had begun in 1840. The Great Western Railway (GWR) village was established in Swindon from 1841, aiming initially to provide 300 homes and associated health, welfare, lodging and education facilities for a new community of workers and their families arriving from across the country to staff the railway works, which came to house an extensive and integrated design, engineering, construction and repair plant for locomotives and other rolling stock, and rails. At its peak in 1925, the workforce numbered over 14,000. The works remained in use by GWR and, following the nationalisation of the railways, British Rail, until 1986.

The earliest part of the buildings making up the present Central Community Centre was constructed in 1862 as the drill hall and armoury for the XI Wiltshire Volunteer Rifle Corps, just to the south of the covered market in Emlyn Square, at the heart of the railway village. The corps had been formed from among the workers at the GWR railway works, in response to the threat of potential invasion from France by Napoleon III. To begin with, the volunteers used the open ground in Emlyn Square as a drill square, but in 1862, the GWR company approved the construction of an armoury and drill hall on the same site. The building consisted of a high, open hall with a prominent porch to the south, with single-storey armourer’s shop and orderly’s room to the rear. The building was abutted on either side by railway workers’ cottages, some of the last to be built by the company. In 1866, a further row was constructed backing on to the rear of the armoury.

A number of serious accidents were suffered by GWR workers in the 1860s, including three deaths in a single month in 1869, where workers were struck by trains as they crossed the railway line. Accident victims were usually taken to an inn or other makeshift location where they awaited a doctor’s visit. There was criticism of the GWR company for not addressing more seriously the prevention of accidents; this resulted in the addition, in 1870, of a subway tunnel under the railway as part of the construction of the carriage works which was added immediately to the south of the main line, allowing safe passage between the railway village and the works. Although the number of similar accidents was reduced, the company recognised that there was a real need for a hospital to treat GWR workers, whose numbers had increased at the end of the 1860s, to staff the new carriage works on the site. Joseph Armstrong, then Superintendent at the works, petitioned the directors in February 1871, suggesting that the armoury should be converted to a hospital, and one of the adjacent cottages given over to a nurse’s home. The directors approved the plan, and the building was converted to a cottage hospital, with a five-bed ward, in the main range, and operating room, room for post-mortems, and a reception accessed to the rear. A door was created between the ward and the nurse’s cottage to the east. The cottage attached to the west side of the armoury was given over as a dispensary and consulting room, with first-floor accommodation for the dispenser.

The hospital was opened in December 1871, the work having been funded by an endowment from Sir Daniel Gooch, former Superintendent at the works, and a rise in workers’ subscriptions to the GWR Medical Fund. The Great Western Railway Medical Fund Society (MFS) had been founded in 1847, initially known as the Sick Club, later the MFS, with money raised by direct deductions from the wages of workers at the GWR works in Swindon. It was used to provide a wide range of health and welfare facilities for the workers and their families. The hospital was provided with a formal garden to the south, bounded by railings on a low brick plinth, between the building and the road, with flower beds, paths and a fountain. The garden was built over with a temporary single-storey structure in 1927, to increase ward capacity to 42 beds. The hospital continued in use until 1960, after which the temporary ward was demolished, and the building converted to a community centre. The garden to the front was much reduced in size in the later C20 for road widening. In 1975, the rear accretions were taken down, and a single-storey, unified range constructed on the same footprint in reconstituted stone. The terrace of cottages to the rear was demolished in the same period, and a car park created for the community centre, in which use the building continued at the date of inspection (2020).

Reasons for Listing

The Central Community Centre, built as an armoury for the Great Western Railway in 1862, converted to a hospital for the GWR Medical Fund in 1871, a community centre since 1960, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:
* as part of the extensive health and welfare provision for workers at the Great Western Railway works in Swindon, which included an integrated medical and preventative health service as early as the beginning of the C20;
* for its evolution from an armoury and drill hall to a hospital, and later a community centre, at the heart of the life of the railway village.

Architectural interest:
* for its design, on a modest and domestic scale to fit with the surrounding buildings of the railway village, but the original, central block made distinct from the cottages to either side by the use of ashlar and more elaborate windows;
* despite the changes of use and the consequent alterations, the original form of the drill hall and the later hospital remain clearly legible.

Group value:
* with the neighbouring Mechanics’ Institution (Grade II*), the Health Hydro, which was built as a swimming baths and dispensary for the GWR Medical Fund (Grade II*), and the other buildings forming the GWR railway village (Grade II).

External Links

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