The new settlement at Swindon conjures up all sorts of images in the mind.

This was how Isambard Kingdom Brunel announced his plans for a new town close to the railway works.

The GWR Board must have been aghast at such a proposal, as they had already overspent the budget to build the railway.

Furthermore, they had already agreed to a works at Swindon, but now Brunel wanted a new town too!

This was an interesting proposal and was possibly played out between Brunel and the Board like some Dickensian scene from Oliver Twist!

What Mr Brunel, you want more? We only had a budget of £3m, and so far we have spent more than £6m do you have any idea how much that is? “We can’t even afford to build a railway station at Swindon, let alone a new settlement for working men!

“Not only that, it’s far too grand for them. Why can’t they live in sheds?”

But Brunel stuck to his guns and in February 1841 the GWR gave a 99-year lease on the land it had purchased from John Harding Sheppard a local farmer and brewer to J D & R Rigby Contractors.

The station refreshment rooms were to be built by Rigby, which could then rent them for one penny a year.

As well as building the station Rigby would have to build the new settlement at its own expense too.

So why would Rigby build all this at its own expense?

It was given a very big sweetener to seal this ground-breaking deal.

Rigby would be given exclusive rights to operate refreshment and hotel facilities there for 99 years and it was thought that they would be money spinners as Swindon was at an an ideal point for a break when the journey was four hours from Paddington to Bristol.

Locomotives had to be changed at Swindon anyway, or people had to change for the Cheltenham line.

Locomotive changes usually took about 10 minutes, so the GWR agreed with Rigby that all trains would stop at Swindon Station for 10 minutes to allow a refreshment break for passengers.

This was a virtual monopoly as there was nowhere else that passengers could get refreshments.

Rigby was obviously up for it as it spent £15,000 – a vast sum at the time – on building the station.

The other stations along the line had been built by other contractors, so it all the more interesting that those contractors did not bid for this contract.

Brunel wanted a grand design for the station and its refreshment rooms far better that those built at Wolverton in 1840 for another railway company.

Though Brunel used Francis Thompson a North Midlands Railway Architect the “GWR way,” was after all the best way and he would show just what could be achieved at Swindon.

With up and down platforms and a refreshment room on each platform the interior of the facilities at Swindon was to be as opulent and as grand as any high class hotel.

Brunel wanted to make sure that the settlement was a fit and proper place for workmen and their families to live.

He had seen similar settlements at Shildon and Wolverton, but his would be grander, and larger.

Not one to do anything by halves, Brunel himself actually designed the first block of cottages to the same standard he laid down for the station and personally took charge of the construction of the Railway Village as it became known.

Its 300 cottages are testament to the detail of Brunel’s model housing standard, how much he was influenced by Thompson is debatable.

However, one thing is certain, the railway village is still in use housing people more than 170 years later.