STAND in Regent Place today and the sights include the side of the Wyvern Theatre, the back of a restaurant and the space where a multi-storey car park used to be.

Nearly 60 years ago the view was radically different and featured a cluster of small and dilapidated early Victorian cottages called Providence Row.

By October of 1957 they were undergoing demolition, ready for the transformation of the area. The labourers from Tydeman Brothers and Sons Ltd discovered something very strange.

One of the cottages had a secret. At some point during the previous century or so, a railway wagon had been hoisted on to the first floor and disguised.

We said: “It had been partitioned to make two small bedrooms and a skin of stonework built around it.

“The cottage had an ordinary roof.

“A stone built into the wall of the row of cottages bears the date 1844, but it is doubtful if the railway wagon cottage was indeed part of the row at that time.

“It is of different construction from the rest of the row and, although the line from Paddington to Bristol had been open for several years and the railway works were being built in Swindon, it is unlikely that the Great Western Railway Company had surplus wagons to dispose of so early in its history.

“The solution to the problem of who built a wagon into his cottage is likely to remain unanswered.”

The row of cottages had been bought by Tydeman’s from the late Harry Webb, who had worked for the company as a carpenter.

We managed to trace a former resident of the cottage, Clifford Oliver, who had moved to Durrington Walk in Penhill after Swindon Town Council made a closure order. He had lived in Providence Row for five years.

Mr Oliver said: “I had no idea that we were sleeping in a railway wagon.

“I noticed the arched roof and thought it unusual, but had no idea why it was arched. Not that we ever slept there very often.

“The upper storey was not fit to sleep in. It was damp and draughty, pieces of the ceiling used to fall on to the bed and we usually slept downstairs.”