What is a Railway Village?

Question

Anything to do with the swindon railway village is welcome..

Rob

Answer 1

Simply put a railway village is either a village that boomed after a station was built there or a village built to serve an existing station.

Answer 2

It is a village which would be placed around a model railway.

Answer 3

Oxyman42 has given the best answer so far.. Don't know where you live, but if you live in London, take a trip to Neasden station. When the Metropolitan Railway built Neasden depot (now used as the main depot for the Metropolitan line but until a few years ago also was the main one for the Jubillee line and prior to that the Bakerloo) it built a whole 'village' for all the workers. These workers were not only the train drivers and guards, but all the mechanics etc for the maintenance and some building of the trains, cleaners and ancilliary staff, and also the men who worked in the power station. It was a self-contained village and all of the streets were named after Directors of the railway or places which the line served - viz, Verney Street, Aylesbury Street etc, and  nearly all the little two-up. two-down and one-out-the-back type houses are still there. Latterly the village was used as rentable accomodation for all grades of London Transport staff but I believe they've flogged it all off now to private owners. Well worth a walk round the area if you're in to that sort of architechture.

Answer 4

I am from Swindon so can answer this for you.

The railway village in Swindon is a collection of houses in Swindon town centre.  It dates back to the time when Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the great western railway.  

Brunel built a repair centre for the railway to fix the trains in Swindon, and the railway village is where the workers lived when not working, containing a church, hospital and houses.

The houses have been well maintained and modified (I believe they are "Grade 2 listed buildings".

One of the houses is preserved as a museum piece with original furniture etc, while all of the other houses are lived in as normal.

A document which expalins a little about the village can be found at:

http://www.blunsdon-pc.gov.uk/swindon_ra...

Answer 5

There are two sorts of railway village. The usual meaing relates to a village built round a railway works such as Swindon (actually more of a town). Other examples include Crewe and Melton Constable in Norfolk. The railway company, in Victorian town, would build houses along with the new works so that people had somewhere to live.

Villages were also on occasion built round stations to encourge commuters. The Metroplitan Railway (when it was a separate company) in particular funded construction of its lines by residential property development.

Answer 6

A village built around the Railway workshops to build and mantain the locomotives and rolling stock.

Answer 7

i don't know

Answer 8

Hampden Park near Eastbourne is a railway village. It started as a station known as Willingdon Station despite being a good two miles from Willingdon but the Southern Railway built several streets to house the workers on the railway at the turn of the 20th century in Mountfield Road, Hampden Avenue, Lottbridge Drive, Percival Road, Kingston Road and Southern Road (named after the Southern Railway above).

It's now the best community in Eastbourne with a possible population of 15,000. If you're not too fussy about what you want to buy, you could buy whatever you need to live with without leaving the village.