This lovely old building is located in Church Place in the railway village of Swindon.  It was formerly the rectory (vicarage) for the church of St. Mark the Evangelist, which itself was built for the railway workers as Swindon expanded when the Great Western Railway opened its work here in the mid 1800s.  Currently it is home to the Playsteps day nursery and although they said we could take photographs for this page, of course we must avoid taking any of the children, which is rather difficult because there are children everywhere!  So, we do only have a few photographs to share with you.

We have been into the property many times as our grandchildren went there and we are very pleased to report that although the building has obviously needed to adapt to its new use (so it is full of toys and equipment), it still has plenty of its history intact and some even displayed proudly.  An example of this is during some necessary work a brass remembrance plaque was found - it was cleaned up and displayed for children and adults to see.  As well as the plaque there was information about the person and the context of that time in Swindon's history (which we didn't photograph as there was a class change and we were in the way!).  We are grateful we were allowed to photograph some of the display and research findings.  We enjoyed seeing the history on display in a very modern environment.

Another element we enjoyed about our visits was knowing what a happy and nurturing place this is now, it is full of the energy of the youngster and the beautiful gardens are enjoyed every day by the little people who are lucky enough to go to this particular nursery.