THIS week in 1965 a new shop opened in Old Town’s Wood Street after a £100,000 investment by builders merchant GA Day Ltd.

The sum, equivalent to about £1.4m today, was spent on transforming what had been an old ironmongery, foundry, building supplies store and engineering shop.

Today the site, which once had A stone archway in the middle of its frontage, is occupied two shop premises and has been for many years.

It is home to wine and spirit shop Magnum, which has been in Old Town since the early 1990s, and The Wood Street Foodhall, which arrived in 2013.

The only clue that there was once just one large shop is the pair of carved lions’ heads which peer from the far top corners of each frontage.

When GA Day opened its Wood Street showroom 51 years ago it booked an eight-page broadsheet advertising supplement in the Adver.

“We cordially invite you,” ran the front page text, “to inspect our comprehensive range of Heating Appliances, Bathroom Displays, Decorating Materials, Tools for all Trades, Electrical Appliances and Light Fittings – in fact everything required by the Builder and Home Improver.”

People venturing inside found what was probably the nearest thing Swindon had to a DIY superstore about a decade before most British people even knew what a DIY superstore was.

In an era when most bathroom fittings were white and made of chilly porcelain, the rows of coloured Perspex baths, sinks and lavatories – “Retains Heat” – must have seemed very glamorous. The baths had names such as Cleopatra and Vogue.

Equally exotic for most people in 1965 were showers such as the ones supplied via GA Day by companies such as Mira.

There were the latest Dimplex Heaters and oil-filled radiators, which no doubt brought comfort to countless winter mornings in the years before central heating became widespread.

There were double-ovened cookers from English Electric, curtain rails from the splendidly-named Silent Gliss and the Electrolux 54, 65 and 90 vacuum cleaners, all three of which are now collectors’ items.

“The rebuilt premises,” we reported, “are one of the most ambitious ventures in Swindon, and were officially opened by the Mayor of Swindon, Coun AWJ Dymond, who was accompanied by the Mayoress, Mrs Dymond.”

At the time GA Day was a family business based in Portsmouth. In the years since, it has changed hands and evolved into a national organisation, Buildbase.