THE small areas of Rodbourne Cheney and Cheney Manor have played a long and important role in the town’s history.

Rodbourne Cheney became a designated conservation area in 1990.

And Cheney Manor was once home to the town’s second largest employer, Plessey.

The name Rodbourne comes from the old English “Hreod Burna,” meaning reedy bourn and refers to the brook which runs north of the manor house.

The Cheney part dates back to 1242, when Ralph Chany owned the manor.

In the Domesday Book the area was known as Redbourne and its 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, on the north side of Akers Way contains two stones of Saxon origin set within its walls, It was consecrated in about 1250 and, in 1308. its first recorded vicar was Johannes Channeu. By the middle of the 19th century, its congregation was swelled by the rapid rise in the town’s population due to the arrival of the Great Western Railway and Rodbourne Cheney changed from a rural to an urban community. The existing Manor House, in Cheney Manor Road, was built during the late 16th century and is grade II-listed.

An area known as Rodbourne Green, once the village green, surrounds the building and was once a popular meeting place for the local hunt. It 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 on 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 seen in the bungalows’ stone-faced panels from the demolished farmhouse.

Just down the road from the conservation area of Rodbourne Cheney is Cheney Manor Industrial Estate, built after Swindon was named an expansion town in the 1952 Town Development Act.

A variety of firms were attracted to it, including Plessey, The Metal Box Company and Square D.

And by 1965 the busy industrial estate also contained clothing firms, small engineering and proto-type casting firms, a GPO engineering depot and many distribution stores and warehouses.

Rick Davies, from the British rock band Supertramp, once took a short-lived job as a welder at Square D.

Plessey first opened a factory in Kembrey Street, Gorse Hill, in 1940, manufacturing radio components. By the mid 1950s its workforce had increased to 2,300 and it moved to the Cheney Manor Industrial Estate in 1957.

The company, whose workforce was 70 per cent female, continued to expand at a rapid rate and Plessey was at the forefront of the new electronic age as every TV and radio required Plessey components to make them work. * Sources for this article include: British History Online, History Of Plessey Website, Rodbourne Cheney Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan