OUR main photograph was taken during the earliest days of Swindon’s short-lived tram system.

A person in 2018 standing where the photographer stood well over a century ago would find their gaze met by that of a stone lion.

The lens looked along Bridge Street from its junction with what is now Canal Walk.

In the foreground are two of the pillars of a bridge crossing the waterway which gave Canal Walk its name.

The bridge, as devotees of Swindon history will be aware, was known as Golden Lion bridge because of the pub nearby.

A sculpture of a golden lion stood for many years, and its more modern replacement was created in honour of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Our smaller photograph was taken in June of 1911 and shows a Swindon tram decorated for the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary.

Both are taken from a brochure published by Thamesdown Transport in 1979 to mark the 75th anniversary of public transport in Swindon.

The text begins: “On the afternoon of Friday, September 22, 1904, the Mayor of Swindon, Alderman James Hinton, and a number of distinguished guests, boarded Swindon Corporation’s Tramcar No 1 and set out on the three and a half mile journey which was to mark the inauguration of the town’s tramways service.

“The first moves towards its provision had been made in the early 1880s, when proposals for a steam tramway were put forward.

“In the event, steam lost out to its modern rival, electrical power, and in 1898 the then separate local authorities of Old and New Swindon agreed both on the establishment of the tram service and if the electricity works which would be used to power it (as well as providing street and domestic power supplies).”

The network, in the approximate shape shape of a two-pronged fork, extended south roughly to Newport Street in Old Town, north-east to Rodbourne and also along Cricklade Road as far as Argyll Street.

There was some teething trouble on the opening day of the system, when one of the tram’s components broke in the town centre and a replacement had to be summoned to complete the round trip tour at Regent Circus.

Buses were introduced in 1927 to cover routes not reached by the trams, and they proved so versatile that the trams remained only until 1929.

Motorman George Cathcart drove the final service on July 11 of that year.