Swindon Decoded, the Curious History of a Remarkable Town, by John Chandler

Swindon, one of the largest towns in southern England, has a long, diverse and fascinating past, beginning with prehistoric and Roman settlers, and continuing as a medieval market and small town, a place of quarries and canals, and later its showpiece railway village, communal buildings and locomotive works. With a proud industrial heritage and innovative local government, Swindon has embraced periods of rapid expansion, through the later Victorian decades, during the 1950s and since the 1970; and these have brought it impressive infrastructure and a bewildering range of commercial and industrial activities. Much of Swindon's history is still there to be discovered. This book sets out to explain Swindon in terms of its history, and then takes the reader round to explore the town in a series of walking guides. This is an extensively revised and updated third edition, now illustrated in colour throughout, of a work first published in 1992. October 2023, 206pp, paperback, colour ills., £16.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-60-4