The County Ground - Old Photos

[stfcjack]

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/us_7ph_gp_loc38_rv_6026

Great photo, always find it incredible how little has changed around the footprint of the ground

[Peter Venkman]

Great photo, always find it incredible how little has changed around the footprint of the ground

Interesting the prisoner of war huts on the pitch down each side, mostly Italian POW's IIRC.

The club were given a tidy amount of money by the government for housing them at the ground.

[Peter Venkman]

Also if you look closely in the bottom left of the picture you can see number 167 Beatrice Street that was destroyed by German bombs killing the homeowner Jane Elizabeth Hobbs on Thursday December 19, 1940 when an errant bomb was dropped onto the railway works and missed its target.

[horlock07]

Interesting the prisoner of war huts on the pitch down each side, mostly Italian POW's IIRC.

The club were given a tidy amount of money by the government for housing them at the ground.

I can't remember the details but I know my old man and his mates made friends with some of the POW's in Swindon during (or possibly after) the war (all very The Machine Gunners for those of us of a certain age), there was a piece in the Advertiser about it a few years back which he sent me a clipping of, although I don't recall where I have put it!

There are other historic aerial photos of Swindon (and everywhere else in England) on that website if one has the time and inclination to look. Another interesting page to use if one is so inclined is https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17.0&lat=54.34765&lon=-2.82431&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld