Roman Mosaics made use of local stone including Chalk, Kimmeridge Clay, Limestone, Green Sand and Purbeck Marble.

Most of the older buildings in Swindon are made of Portland Stone including the Town Hall built in 1852 and the Italiante tower built to the left of the Town Hall as a Corn Exchange in 1864-6.

Now boarded up number 42, further along Cricklade Street, was once described as 'the finest piece of domestic Architecture in Swindon.' Built in 1729 it marries together not only local sandstone but clay from the vale as well.

A 'Red-Rash' of Brick

With Portland Stone being a finite resource the good quality stone was fairly quickly used up.

Local builders were forced to turn to another material - brick. The 'red-rash' of brick houses cropping up in Victorian Swindon were built from local brick taken from the plain of Kimmeridge Clay surrounding Old Town.

Kimmeridge Clay is even older than Portland Stone and is the product of purely open marine conditions.

150 million years old its birthplace was a deeper, calmer and muddier Jurassic sea than the sea which created the Portland Stone.

Fine sediment brought in by rivers, unlike sand, tended to get washed further out to sea where it settled on the sea bed, 30-40 metres down, to form Kimmeridge Clay.

Saxon Swindon

But Victorian entrepreneurs weren't the first Swindonians to take advantage of the Kimmeridge Clay. With the arrival of the Romans, in Swindon, local pottery became big business.

To meet the demand kiln sites started popping up all over West Swindon, Purton and near Durocornovium, which today is remembered in name only as Dorcan.

At the potteries peak, around AD 120, there may have been as many as 1000 kilns in use.

Swindon's red terror: Kimmeridge clay bricks

After the Romans left the Saxons took over the hill and established a farming community naming it 'the hill of pigs on the flat ground' or Swine Dun.

For Swindon Saxons the town centre, so to speak, was behind Market Square. The centre of the settlement, a chieftain's long house and a cluster of huts, were all unearthed in the new housing development appropriately named Saxon Court.

And just to prove Saxons did like Swindon living a Saxon sunken hut was also discovered further down the High Street behind Lloyds Bank.

...at Market Square turn right into Newport Street. At the traffic lights, just before Devizes Road, turn left into Station Approach. Follow the path around to the left and as you enter the industrial estate turn right and follow the signs to the Old Town Rail Path.

Walk along the Old Town Rail Path and under the Devizes Road bridge. Just after the Springfield Road bridge you will see, on your right, a signpost marking this area as a Site of Specific Scientific Interest