RURAL and urban life will be celebrated in an exciting new festival to be launched at the Richard Jefferies Museum this summer, over the weekend of July 21-22.

Mike Pringle, director of the museum, and Colin Hatch, of Hatch Heritage and Steam Engineers have teamed up to create a new annual summer event called Town and Country, exploring the dramatic changes triggered in the 19th century by the technologies of the industrial revolution.

They have ambitions to build up a major new event on the town’s calendar, and hope that one day it might thrive and grow, till it spills over from the museum into Coate Water Park next door. The museum itself was once a farm and famously the home of Victorian nature writer and former Adver journalist Richard Jefferies – so it is an ideal setting to examine the rural and agricultural history of the north Wiltshire countryside, as well as the steam revolution that created the town of which it is now a part.

Colin and Mike first met two years ago during Swindon175, the anniversary celebrations for the location of the Great Western Railway works in the town – a decision that transformed Swindon from a sleepy rural market town into a bustling industrial centre and the largest settlement in Wiltshire. Colin’s company built the two replica hooters which once presided over Brunel’s GWR works, on the roof of the Steam railway museum. The first steam-powered hooter was installed in 1867, fell silent in 1986 – only to be heard again for the anniversary celebrations in 2016.

“It needs a supply of steam to work, so I took a traction engine down, to sound the hooter on March 26 2016 exactly 30 years to the minute when they last sounded it. There are lots of people in heritage groups in Swindon, and they all came together for that,” Colin said. “I met Mike and we thought we’d like to put on shows and educate people about the town’s heritage.”

The Richard Jefferies Museum celebrated Swindon175 with the opening of a new railway station, part of the Coate Water Railway track extension.

“Swindon175 gave us a grant to help develop the little railway station,” Mike said. “So 30 years after the works closed, we had a new station opening in Swindon.”

Mike and Colin are ideally placed to steer the fledgling Town and Country event. Colin’s family has a history of working on the railways. His business, based in Wanborough, has been operating since 1990 and restores road and rail steam vehicles.

“I’ve been playing with steam engines since I was 14,” he says. “My father was employed at the railway works in Swindon, and my uncle. When Pressed Steel Fisher arrived, lots left working on the railways and started working in the car factory because the wages were better. My father went into Pressed Steel, and I’m one of three brothers – we all did apprenticeships in the car factory.”

He said the five-year apprenticeship provided a good grounding in general engineering, mostly working with former railwaymen, and he grew up listening to their stories about the railways. Colin became a machine maintenance engineer but earlier in his teens he had become fascinated by steam engines, and at 14 joined the crew for a steam roller owned by a friend of his father’s. It is an enthusiasm that has stayed with him.

And why does he think so many people are still enchanted by steam engines?

“It’s like they’re alive,” he says. “They talk to you, they respond. If there’s something wrong, you can sense it. They’re almost human.

“It’s everything about it – the design, the time and trouble that went into building them. And the smell from the cylinder oil. It’s all about that.”

He owns three steam engines, a traction engine, a portable engine that drives machinery, and a small version that is being restored. The arrival of such machines in the agricultural industry of the 19th century transformed life and work on the land. Steam engines could be used to power saw mills and threshing machines.

“Contractors would go from farm to farm, set up in a rick yard, then when the job was finished, move on to the next,” Colin said.

Mike added: “We want to celebrate Victorian and indeed the whole history of farming here on this site. Jefferies loved nature, and he was passionate about people in nature. He was writing about agriculture for papers like the Adver.

“Changes were happening, and people were losing their jobs and moving into the town, and Jefferies would have seen that. The industrial revolution was a time when people were moving to Swindon to get work. Just before the railway, Swindon was a farming community and every area of Swindon was a farm.”

This first event will include displays, pictures and examples of farm machinery – but Colin and Mike are keen to hear from other individuals and groups with ideas for Town and Country.

“Our plan is to build the event up each year, and we are now looking for people, stalls and activities to join us. If you demonstrate country crafts, promote history or nature, lead walks, sing songs, share art skills or have anything else that might work, get in touch and let’s talk,” Mike said.

Contact him on mike@richardjefferies.org or call 07768 917466.