AS loss of cultural heritage goes it doesn’t quite rank alongside the wholesale removal of classical sculptures from Athens, courtesy of the 7th Earl of Elgin, or the extraordinary vanishing act of St Petersburg’s palatial Amber Room – an ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ filched by the Nazis and whose whereabouts remain a mystery.

And let’s be honest, Swindon hardly suffered an indignity on the scale of tiny Bradenstoke near Lyneham whose 800 year-old priory and 645 year-old tithe barn were dismantled and carted off to Wales in the 1920s by American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, as related in these pages last week.

But around 25 years ago a notable part of our own heritage disappeared without trace from right under our noses. One day it was there and then it was gone.

And no-one - apart from those responsible, and they’ve not said a word - has since laid eyes upon it.

I am talking, of course, about the hefty commemorative stone that marks – sorry, marked – the very birth of education in this town and whose photograph occasionally adorns sepia tinted street scenes of Olde Swindon.

Over the years there has been a rising number of thefts of al fresco works of art or stylish garden ornaments as demand for such eye-catching pieces rises.

One sculpture was brazenly pilfered under the cloak of darkness from the front of Lydiard House back in the Nineties, as I recall.

However, the culprits behind the demise of a weighty, landmark stone engraved with the words ‘1836 National School’ were not a gang of nocturnal tea-leafs on the look-out for a spot of illicit booty.

The guilty men, it is strongly assumed, were some bungling council workmen…...

The history of education in Swindon – at least, for the working classes – harks back to 1764 when a free school was established in Newport Street, Old Town – Swindon’s oldest street - on land owned by our manorial bosses, the Goddard family.

Funded with contributions, the establishment saw 20 boys and five girls taught the four ‘rs’: reading, riting, rithmatic and religion.

By the early 19th Century a body called the National School Society had emerged to bring free education across the country and Swindon’s school fell under its wing.

Our original 18th Century school was swept aside in 1837 to make way for a spanking new, two-storey stone-built National School, complete with a fine and proud name stone on the façade.

One of its headmasters was a certain John Turvey (1755-1850), who is said to have fought at Waterloo 200 years ago before returning Swindon to enter the fray in the classroom.

Numbered among its pupils was future author/poet/Adver journalist/literary Swindon folk hero Richard Jefferies in the 1860s.

As the town rapidly expanded due to the Great Western Railway, Swindon’s National School outgrew its premises and the school bell rang for a final time in 1871.

Its roll-call of more than 100 youngsters promptly headed for newly built King William Street School around the corner.

Largely surrounded by thatched buildings, the National School became the Christ Church Men’s Club.

“Oh what happy remembrances I have of that club room back in Cannon Mayell’s time,” one reader wrote us in 1974.

The ball and chain finally swung into action in 1962, levelling the structure.

However, the name stone – weighing about a tonne - was carefully removed and eventually restored by the council who installed it as a monument of sorts next to the Newport Street garage where the school once stood.

And then, around 1990 Old Town folk, who had walked past it every day for more than two decades, and pretty much took it for granted, realised something was up….it wasn’t there anymore.

Increasingly urgent enquiries were made to the council, notably from the Old Town Group, concerning the fate of “our great big concrete engraving.”

They wanted to know: “Where it’s gone – who’s taken it – what’ve they done with it?” The authority’s response was “um, we don’t know” on all three counts.

Intrigue over the whereabouts of our historic relic grew to exasperation and even anger.

Fifteen years ago Swindon’s director of education and community Mike Lusty told this journalist: ”We’ve been approached by the Old Town Group on a number of occasions over the years.

“However, extensive investigations both within the council and further afield have failed to locate it.”

Intriguingly, no papers or records regarding our historic concrete name-stone following its removal from the old school building 38 years earlier, could be found!

In response Brenda Sawyer of the Old Town Group said: “It’s a mystery. The last time we saw it it was propped up by the garage, and then it disappeared.”

Gwenda Barnes of the Pipers Area Residents Association had heard, off-record, that council contractors had removed it for preservation purposes after it had been damaged by a lorry in the garage forecourt.

Her theory was that it was further cracked or broken - possibly in transit - and then dumped double-quick.

“Perhaps someone in the council knows what happened but it too embarrassed to say,” she added.

Also of the Old Town Group, Terry King insisted: "A lorry drove over it and broke the stone in three pieces so we then asked the council to provide a new one."

The ‘new one’ came in the form of commemorative blue plaque – something of a rarity in Swindon (see panel.)

Non-one is saying that the ‘1836 National School’ engraving was of any great beauty and it certainly had little monetary value. But its significance to Swindon was immense.

Back in ’68, when it was restoring the stone for future preservation, the council was keen to emphasize the relic’s importance.

“The National School stone commemorates the first organised school in Swindon….it marks the point when Parliament began to assume responsibility for education.”

But not anymore because it is almost certainly now dust. Either that or it is adorning somebody’s back garden, attractively surrounded by shrubs.

  •  ON a drizzly day in 2002 a crowd of gathered outside Monahan’s chartered accountants in Newport Street close to the location of the National School that was demolished 40 years earlier.
    Unveiled was a 12-inch commemorative blue plaque that reads: “Near here stood Swindon’s first free school, opened circa 1764. 
    “In 1836 it was replaced on the same site by the National School, itself closed in 1870 and demolished in 1962.” 
    The Mayor Dave Cox said: “It is important to learn about the history of Swindon. 
    “When we find these factors we should commemorate them, not just for us now but also for people who come after us to see and know. 
    “It’s a grand job for the people of Swindon.” 
    The plaque, incidentally, was placed sufficiently high enough to avoid vandalism, passing trucks and ham-fisted council officials but low enough to read.

     

  •  FOR many years Swindon’s first Free School, and later the National School that was built on the same spot, rubbed shoulders with one of the town’s oldest buildings, believed to date back to “at least 1677.”
    Quaintly known as The Olde House At Home it was – like most buildings around it – thatched and constructed from course stone. 
    Run by “provisions merchant” James Barnes, it sold sweets, tobacco and liquor.
    A photograph exists of hundreds of people crammed into Newport Street in 1910 watching the fire brigade tackle a blaze at the property after its thatch had caught fire during a hot, dry summer (those were the days.) 
    One fireman fell off a ladder when he was struck by hose of water, falling onto another a few steps below.
    On the site of today’s Newport Street garage forecourt, it was partially destroyed and then rebuilt as an off-license. Later it became a sweet shop “known to chocolate connoisseurs from far and near for its exclusive Continental confectionery lines,” before closing in the 1960s.