The Victoria Temperance & Commercial Hotel has long since been demolished.  It was located at 2 Station Road, Swindon, which we have discovered was a different location to where 2 Station Road is now.  The second photograph below shows the plot where the Hotel stood; John Webb (builders merchants) also stood here.

We know the Victoria Hotel existed because we have a business card - it was owned by Duncan's great grandparents George and Mary Ball, who also ran other businesses from this premise as can be seen in the business card below.  Notice the card has no phone number (or of course website!).  One of George and Mary's sons, Samuel (Duncan's grandfather), remembered as a child that on occasions they would be seated at the dinner table and there would be a knock at the door as someone arrived asking for accommodation and Samuel's dinner would be taken from him and given to the guest.

We are grateful to the staff staff of the Local Studies department of the Swindon Central Library for their help in tracking down the location of the hotel.  It was only when the 1911 Census was published that we realised our information did not fit well with the Census information so we looked into the problem and discovered that at the time of the Census, the current 2 Station Road was called Station Road East - so the Hotel was in a different location.  The library staff were able to show us where Station Road was located at the time and by following the route of the Census taker we found the site of the Hotel was part of a row of terraced housing between Gloucester Street and Cheltenham Street.  Later we understand the houses became John Webbs builders merchants.

By coincidence, George and Mary's grandson Harold Ball worked for John Webbs from the early 1960s.  Harold (Duncan's father) of course never knew he was working in the place where his grandparents ran their businesses all those years before.