Tuesday saw us moving away in bright sunshine but with a slight reluctance; Clare was meeting us at Buscot to collect Caleb and Madeleine. They have been with us since Friday and it has been lovely; they are good children who eat anything placed in front of them and will amuse themselves for hours. They have been allowed to help with all of the locks except one (we believe that keeper to be a bit strange anyway)and are a constant source of amusement with their innocent questioning and outlook.
As we were not in need of a day to recover from their visit, next morning we took the bus from Lechlade to Swindon and went to look at the steam museum. Myra had a short look around and then wandered around the outlet shopping area next door.
The whole area was once occupied by the Swindon railway works; extending to some 230 acres and employing 14,000 people at its height early in the 20th century.
The works opened on 2nd January 1843 and transformed a sleepy market town (WERE they ALL sleepy?)into a rapidly expanding industrial one. To provide housing for it's workers, the railway built the a Village, a Mechanics Institution, started a Medical Fund Society and completed St Mark's Church by 1850.
There was no compensation for employees injured in the works, however they were guaranteed a job for life when they had recovered. British Rail closed the entire works in 1986.
Back to the Museum: it is well laid out with a unique feature of an inspection pit allowing access to the underside of the Castle class 4-6-0 number 4073 'Caerphilly Castle'. Other exhibits include BR Standard class 9F 2-10-0 number 92220 'Evening Star' which was the last steam locomotive to be built at Swindon and also the last to be built for British Railways. Swindon added their own Great Western Railway touch by fitting a copper capped double chimney.
The museum is well worth a visit, the shopping outlet apparently also. I would have preferred the site to be occupied by the functioning railway works with it's large workforce; however there are signs of industry around the area with BMW and Honda each having large sites. Returning to Lechlade, we moved down river to Buscot in time for the last of the sunshine. Today, Thursday, we moved slowly down chatting to John at Buscot and Keith at Grafton; to the area above Rushey lock where we were the only boat moored; something we have not seen before. The sunshine lasted all afternoon and we had a good, lazy day apart from walking to Rushey lock and depositing some rubbish there in the skips.
