How much do you know about Swindon?
While in many of our article so far we have helped to give you some useful advice when it comes to selling your house in Swindon, or if you are looking for properties for sale in Swindon, but how much do you actually know about this town which lies at the gateway to the West Country?
We thought it would be fun to do a little digging around to see what we could come up with; some of which you may know but there may be a few facts we hope will be interesting and revealing. Here are our top 10 interesting facts about Swindon:
- One of the most iconic buildings in Swindon, the Spectrum Building, was designed by the world-renowned architect, Norman Foster, and it is now a listed building and which was also used as a location in the James Bond film, A View to a Kill.
- Swindon’s Museum and Art Gallery is understood to have one of the finest British 20th century art collections found outside of London.
- While we may know their names, very few people would associate these people with Swindon, including Diana Dors, Desmond Morris, Gilbert O’Sullivan, XTC, Julian Clary, Melinda Messenger, Billy Piper, Mark Lamarr and David Templeman-Adams.
- Swindon is home to the Museum of Computing which, whether you’re interested in computing and IT technology or not, is very much worth a visit and highly recommended.
- It may be an urban myth as we, personally, haven’t seen any, but it is believed that there is a colony of feral budgies that inhabit the main park in Swindon.
- Swindon is mentioned in the Domesday Book under the name Suindune, suin being the Anglo-Saxon for pig and dun being the Anglo-Saxon for Hill, the name being adapted and adjusted over the ensuing centuries, to include the name Swine’s town, as depicted in the poem by Keats:
Fill for me a brimming bowl
And in it let me drown my soul:
T’were pigs are running up and down
And soon shall fill Swine’s Town
- Swindon is twinned with three towns: Ocotal in Nicaragua, Salzgitter in Germany, and Torun in Poland.
- According to a forum poster on Charlton Life, “In 1994 South West Water was fined £3.5m for long term pollution of the water table. This pollution led to a strange phenomena [sic] in the 70’s and 80’s whereby a high number of females were born with particularly large mouths.
- This is evidenced by Billie Piper and Melinda Messenger.” We suspect, however, that this may not be true!
- Swindon is home to the Steam Museum, a fitting place bearing in mind that Isambard Kingdom Brunel opted for Swindon as the location for railway works when he was planning the Great Western Railway.
- And who doesn’t think of Spaghetti Junction when you mention Swindon – one of the UK’s most complex ‘roundabouts’ cum road junctions and which has actually been voted the scariest in the UK. Truth be told, its reputation precedes it as it is not that difficult to negotiate, well not unless you use your satnav, which can’t cope with the proximity of all the roads!
So, if you have been thinking of moving to Swindon but wondered what is special about the place, well we’ve just scratched the surface. On a more serious note though, here at Moovahome here in Swindon, we are committed to providing a comprehensive professional service for those of you either looking to buy or sell a home in Swindon, so do make sure you get in touch with us and we will be more than delighted to help you any way we can.