This artwork is located in the
Faringdon Road Park and is a little difficult to find as it lies at ground level and not visible from a distance. Should you want to visit it, look towards the church of St. Mark (which is outside the park on Church Road) and then you should see the children's play area inside the park. These stones are to the left of the play area.
We cannot tell you much about the installation as information has been difficult to find. There have been a few references to it on a Swindon Facebook page but we cannot verify if it is accurate or not. So please bear this in mind when we tell you what we think we know.
We understand this was commissioned by Caroline and Christine Ockwell in memory of their mother, who ran the 1st Brownies at St. Marks church. The artwork is by local artist Phil King and the stone is from Filkins Stone Company. It has been mentioned there is a time capsule underneath too.
What we can tell you is our personal experience of this artwork. Back in 2015 we spotted a photograph of one stone on
Flickr.com and decided to go and find it. When we arrived in the park we could not see it. We noticed a group of gardeners in one area and thought if anyone knows where it is it will be the gardeners, so we asked them. It turns out they were volunteers from the Railway Village who help with the up-keep of the park but none of them had heard of this stone - it turns out they don't cut the grass so don't have knowledge of the whole park. One person thought there may be something in the ground next to the play park so we wandered over and searched. Yes, there is was! But not very visible as grass had grown over it. We noticed there were lots of other stones too, not just the one as shown on Flickr, all of which seemed to be disappearing under the grass. We took photographs as best we could and, to be honest, thought it wouldn't be long before it would disappear for good.
A few days later Mandy was at choir, which meet in the Central Community Centre and spoke to a volunteer there to ask if they knew anyone in the gardening group. She said she did so Mandy asked her to tell them that we did find the stone and to pass on our thanks to them. Mandy also mentioned the sad state of it and that she thought it may soon disappear.
We didn't like the thought it might dissapear so decided to do something about it. So suitably armed with gardening equipment we went back to the park prepared to unearth it. But to our surprise, the work had already been done. We suppose those gardeners went to look at it and decided to save it. We have been back a few times since and each time it is quite visible and the grass suitably trimmed. Well done to whomever it was who keeps looking after it to keep it from again disappearing.