Swindon Through the Years - Series 5 Episode 17

This time in Swindon Through the Years we take a look at images that show development of the Drakes Way playing fields, changes to the site of the EMI CD plant in Greenbridge Road and the construction of the Hilton Hotel at Lydiard Fields.

[@longbar2344]

thank you

[@electroshed]

Brilliant series, lots of memories for an ex-Swindonian! I remember the illuminated flashing/animated Swindon Cable sign on your head-end building on Newcombe Drive (End of Hawksworth Way)

[@swindoncabletelevision]

Oh good memory! That sign was there for years... a beacon of light on a drab estate!

[@garysherman2542]

Fascinating series of films and thank you for bringing them to us. Do you, I wonder, have any pictures or information on the large parabolic antenna that once stood on top of the Radio Rentials building, somewhere down by Pressed Steel? One day it was just taken away. I believe it was after Swindon Pipeline was discontinued. Thanks for any information or pictures that you might be able to share.

[@swindoncabletelevision]

Thank you! I think you might mean the satellite dishes that were based at the Thorn EMI building in Shrivenham Riad. I have posted a video before of them being installed back in the 1980’s.

[@garysherman2542]

@@swindoncabletelevision I think that you're right with regard location. I remember that the building was in an industrial estate that backed onto the old canal where there was a pathway (grass and mud) to the underpass on Drakes Way. The dish antenna was there in the 1960s until it became redundant some time in the early 70s, if my memory serves me. Perhaps this was when the "Pipeline" service was discontinued. It was a very large dish that took 2-3 weeks to dismantle and remove, but all this happened a long time before the other dishes that you refer to came along.

[@chrisdawson6156]

I wonder if you could upload Kelvin Road greenbridge industrial estate from now and 2002 I started working there back then I just want to see how much has changed in 20 years