Guide to Cheney Manor

From 13th century listed buildings to a busy industrial estate which once was home to the town’s second largest employer, Plessey, the areas of Rodbourne Cheney and Cheney Manor play an important part in our town’s industrial history.

Rodbourne Cheney was once a historical hamlet and due to a number of architectural, historical and environmental factors, became a designated conservation area in 1990. The name Rodbourne derives from the old English “Hreod Burna” meaning reedy bourn and refers to the brook which runs north of the manor house. The name Cheney dates back to 1242 when Ralph Chany owned the manor.

The first written evidence of occupancy in the area was recorded in the Domesday Book when the area was known as Redbourne. Inhabitants were listed as 3 villains, 5 borders and one serf, a peasant of a low hereditary class who lived and worked on the manor.

St Mary’s Church, standing on the north side of Akers Way and surrounded by an old stone wall, was consecrated in approximately 1250. The first recorded vicar at the Church was Johannes Channeu in 1308.

The Manor House, situated in Cheney Manor Road, is a stone tiled, grade two-listed building, which was built during the late 16th century. An area known as Rodbourne Green, once the local village green, surrounds the building and was once a popular meeting place for the local hunt and is also rumoured to have contained the village stocks.

During 1928 the parish of Rodbourne Cheney became part of the Borough of Swindon and many new houses were built. Vicarage Road, built from land which once belonged to Manor Farm, by-passed the old village. The farmhouse, which had fallen into a state of disrepair, was demolished and a number of new bungalows were built. Evidence of the old farmhouse can still be found in the bungalow’s stone- faced panels, which are made of natural stone used from the demolished farmhouse.

Just down the road from the conservation area of Rodbourne Cheney is the busy Cheney Manor Industrial Estate, which was built after Swindon was named an expansion town during the 1952 Town Development Act. A variety of firms were attracted to the new industrial estate including Plessey, The Metal Box Company, Square D and several smaller companies and by 1965 the busy industrial estate also contained factories for clothing firms, small engineering and proto-type casting firms, a G.P.O engineering depot and many distribution stores and warehouses.

Rick Davies from the British rock band Supertramp, famous during the 1970s and early 1980s and releasing a series of top selling albums, once took a job as a welder at Square D, a company who had a factory on the Cheney Manor Industrial Estate manufacturing industrial control products and systems. Rick’s welding days at Square D were however short lived and he went on with his band to record many chart hits including Goodbye Stranger, The Logical Song and Breakfast in America.

Plessey moved to the Cheney Manor Industrial Estate in 1957 and began to manufacture semiconductor transistors. The company, whose work force was approximately seventy percent women, continued to expand at a rapid rate. Swindon was no longer a one-industry town with Plessey at the forefront of the new electronic age. Every TV and radio required Plessey components to make them work.