As part of Swindon's renovation plan, the old town centre Station on
Princess Street has been levelled.
This is a move in the right direction, ie out of town.
Unfortunately they've spoilt it by building another one, right on the
outskirts.
They are calling their new Divisional HQ "Gablecross",
which just has to be a new (made-up) name.
The plans are that Chippenham Station goes' next, along with Chippenham's
local hospital, which is the stupid part of the plan.
The sites in Swindon are earmarked for a link between a cultural centre
(Pubs) and the exchange zone (offices and shops) [Adver data], with those in
Chippenham just being flogged for housing.
Long range Panorama, alternative view from a better multistorey carpark.
View obtained by dangerous behaviour for art's stake, on a multistorey car
park.
Similar footage lifted from the Swindon Evening Advertiser (Adver), showing they have a:
Side-panorama, also lifted from the 'Adver.
Rather irritatingly, after hanging off high-rise carparks, rapid-processing
and post-processing the film for around £20, I picked up a copy of the
local rag for 30p, and it had better photos in it with much the same angles
of the same subject matter. Rather than chuck in the one for the other after
doing all that work, I've shown the two side-by-side here. ('March 3rd edition.)
All is not lost though; my photos look better on LCD monitors where the
gamma and/or brightness are whacked up too high.
This add's to Swindon's boast of having the dullest town centre in the known Universe, because most of it is now either rubble, or undeveloped plots used as carparks, or undeveloped plots fenced-off until the land prices peak. Visit Swindon, for that "freshly-bombed" look. Handy rehabilitation for people returning home from war zones, not handy for much else right now. Still, at least there's plenty of parking to frustrate the new hardline traffic wardens from the cash-strapped Borough Council. So go find a space now, because there won't be anywhere to park when/if the redevelopment get's going.
Before demolision began, it used to look like this...
This the Tower just as demolition is about to begin. Taken from someone's webblog. The blogger also has an old photo of the whole building, but since it's a bad angle, you only get the link here. Another start page from the Blogger. His diary of this is split across several entries.
Why all this about a Blogger? Well, he tagged an except onto Flickr, and
linked back to his blog from there, which is how I found the links to the
Swindon Gallery, and this collection of Before photos. Credit where due,
et al.
These two are taken from the (Public Domain) Swindon Gallery.
The first showing the front/middle of the site.
The second show's the site middle/rear, up to where the 'Station used
to plug into the local Magistrate's Court.
Freedom main page.