MECHANICS AND METHODIST MIX-UP
It was a delight to read Tim Dunn’s article about the Swindon Railway Village in issue 507, among many other sparkling articles (especially the series by Tony Streeter about the narrow gauge riches of Germany). However, I would like to add a couple of observations.
First, the picture on page 80 is not the Mechanics’ Institute, which is not particularly photogenic at the moment. It is actually the old Methodist chapel which served for many years as home to the former GWR museum.
The second observation I would make relates to the Railway Village itself. Niklaus Pevsner, the architectural historian, comments that it was Matthew Digby Wyatt who is said to have designed the village, rather than Brunel himself. This is entirely possible as Brunel himself drew confidently on Wyatt’s expertise, outlining in a letter written fairly soon before the completion of Paxton’s Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (with which Wyatt was closely involved as secretary) his vision for ‘a station after my own fancy… with engineering roofs etc, etc.’ In the letter, he explains to Wyatt that ‘for detail of ornament I neither have time nor knowledge’ and he enlists Wyatt’s ‘advice and assistance’ in this ‘branch of architecture’, drawing on ‘all those correct notions of the use of metal which I believe you and I share’. Wyatt in fact designed much of the metalwork ornamentation at Paddington, and Brunel even entrusted to him the design of the Royal Waiting Room on Platform 1.
Best wishes for the continued success of your excellent magazine,
Kevin Eames, Trowbridge, Wilts