Midsummer Music

   Swindon   

About   Swindon  where our live musicians perform

   Covering Party Bands, String Quartets, Barn Dance / Ceilidh and Jazz   

Towns, cities and regions, such as   Swindon  have an influence on the style of music, whether it is the 'English Countryside' feel of Vaughan Williams, the strength of Elgar's Victorian Malvern, or the skirl of Northumbrian Pipe tune.

About  Swindon   

Swindon began as a Saxon village. The name Swindon is derived from the Saxon words swine dun meaning pig hill or the hill where pigs were bred. Swindon is mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086). At that time Swindon was a tiny village but by the late 13th century Swindon had grown into a small town with a weekly market. Swindon was still a very small settlement with perhaps 600 inhabitants. It would seem tiny to us but settlements were very small in those days. A typical village had only 100 or 150 inhabitants. For centuries Swindon was just a small and quiet market town. By the late 17th century a stone quarry was being worked there. In 1697 Swindon had a population of 791 which meant it was very small town even by the standards of the time. By 1801 Swindon had grown to 1,198 people. A writer of the time said 'The pleasantness of its situation combined with other circumstances may have induced many persons of independent fortune to fix their residence at Swindon'. It was a very small and genteel market town. As well as the market their were 4 annual fairs. A fair was like a market but held only once a year. People would come from all over Wiltshire to buy and sell at a Swindon fair. Horses, sheep and cattle were sold. The Wiltshire and Berkshire canal was built in 1810 and was followed by the North Wiltshire canal in 1819 both of which brought more trade to the area. By 1831 the population of Swindon had risen to 1,742. Of course it was the coming of the railway which transformed Swindon from a small and sleepy market town into the largest town in Wiltshire.

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