THE image here is of one of Swindon’s best-known hotels as it looked when it opened 43 years ago.

These days the former Menzies Swindon Hotel is a rather sorry sight.

Since its sudden closure shortly before Christmas of 2013, the only ‘guests’ are reputed to have been drunks and drug abusers who broke in.

Last October it was announced that a deal had been struck with GLH Hotels to bring it back to life, but for now it stands forlorn and empty.

It was a different story in late February of 1973, when our picture – the work of respected architectural artist Peter Sainsbury – was the centrepiece of a full-page advert for what was then known as the Wiltshire Hotel.

“New Hotel Provides First Class Service,” said the headline above the accompanying advertising feature.

We wrote: “The eight floors of this splendid hotel in Fleming Way vie with the towering police station and the Hambro Life building as a Swindon landmark.

“Guests staying in the two plush executive suites on the top floor will have a view right across the roofs of Swindon to the County Ground. They could almost watch a football match.

“The non-suite bedrooms all have radio, telephone and black and white television sets. All are furnished on the same theme, with thick carpets and restful colours.

“Bedheads are deeply padded and recessed for telephone and radio switches.

“Two lifts and a wide, fully-carpeted staircase give access to each of the seven floors above ground level, and the corridors are thickly close carpeted in plain red with a black fleck.”

Guests could call outside numbers without going through the switchboard if they chose, and there were two “bubble hooded” payphones in the reception area.

The reception area ceiling was covered with rust-coloured flock vinyl – the epitome of 1970s sophistication – and the desk itself was padded dark brown leather.

There were two banqueting suites, the Stratton and the Barbury, and a public house called The Springers.

The fortunes of the hotel would vary in the years to come, although it made one or two minor guest appearances in history.

Most notoriously, a teenaged Stephen Fry would be arrested there during an unhappy period in his life.

The hotel also featured as a location in an episode of a police drama series called Target, which starred Patrick Mower.