Swindon Railway Cottage Museum open 10th & 11th Sept.

[whole diary]

[RobT]

As part of Heritage Open Days 2016 the Railway Cottage Museum will be open for the first time in many years.

To celebrate Heritage Open Days 2016 and Swindon175 the Mechanics' Trust will be opening the Railway Cottage Museum on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September for the first time since it was transferred to us in July 2016. The Cottage is a unique example of what life was like living in Swindon's Railway Village in the early 1900s.

 This is a special chance to see the Cottage, which has been closed to the public for many years, before it is refurbished ahead of its official re-opening some time next year.

 Opening times: 10:30am - 3:00pm. FREE ENTRY.

 We will also be giving guided tours of the Railway Village at 11:30am and 2:00pm on Saturday and Sunday.

 For more information please contact us - T: 07516 477479
 E: railwaycottage@mechanics-trust.org.uk

https://www.facebook.com/events/1180388811982211/
https://mechanics-trust.org.uk/

[bobm]

Thank you for highlighting this.

Took a trip there this morning.

I was struck by how small the cottage looks from the outside but how roomy it appeared inside.  High ceilings certainly help to give it a feel of space although when a family of seven were living in it, I suspect it was very different.



The front room "only used for best"



One of the bedrooms, not sure if the bed is in the original position but not how close it is to the fireplace on the bottom right.

[stuving]

One of the bedrooms, not sure if the bed is in the original position but not how close it is to the fireplace on the bottom right.

But those bedroom fireplaces were never used, were they? Except maybe if you were being nursed in bed for some time.

I was brought up in a house with coal fires, and built after gas and electricity were also available for heating. But there was no gas in the bedrooms, and we never had electric heaters unless ill in bed. At least not to start with, in the 50s - things got a bit more sybaritic in the 60s.

So maybe there was ice on the inside of the windows occasionally, so what? Mind you, I'm not in the least nostalgic for that. And as for chilblains ...

 

[bobm]

I live in a house built by the railway, although not in the village itself and there are fireplaces in every room - except for the slightly more modern extension added to the back.

I had always assumed they would have been used, else why put them in?  Admittedly the upstairs rooms are bigger in mine.  I have always fancied having a fire in my office in the depth of winter but not had the courage to check out the soundness of the chimneys!

[didcotdean]

The house my dad grew up in was built in the 1930s and even that had two fireplaces upstairs as well as two downstairs, although by the time I knew the house in the 1970s the only one still in use was in the front room as coke-fired central heating had been installed and the rest boarded up (the coke store was an old Anderson shelter that had been rebuilt above ground). My dad said though that before that had been done if anyone was ill his dad would start a fire in an upstairs room by taking a shovel of coal from one of the other fires.

The front room fire was never allowed to go entirely out apart from the summer.