From One Express to Another

Progress at Swindon Designer Outlet.

Long Shop Light

Some of the newest photos from the work on the Long Shop at Swindon's Outlet Centre. The sunny conditions gave the building a real airy feel, especially on the newly created mezzanine. 

Sunshine and Rain

A break in the weather at last today and a couple of sunshine and rain pictures of Swindon's Long shop building in the rail works site. The work on the Outlet Centre's expansion into the Long Shop is underway.

Long-Distance Consumers for Swindon Outlet's Expansion?

The Long Shop which we soon be the new extension to the Swindon Outlet Centre, will it's stores be buzzing with international shoppers?

Swindon's Outlet Centre in the former GWR Rail Works workshops at Churchward, has since opening in 1997 become a vital part of retailing in the town.

The 50,000 square feet extension of the Outlet Centre into the empty Long Shop building next door (click here for pictures behind the doors of the Long Shop, that's frozen in time from 1986) will see £35 million invested, not just in the expansion, but also revamping the current centre.

With more visitors coming from overseas to buy highly-prized UK brands like Burberry and Paul Smith  at designer outlets, the Swindon Outlet Centre is well placed to reap huge rewards from foreign shoppers.

Plus as Swindon looks to attract businesses from the newly-dominate economies of China, India, Brazil and the rest, the retail offer we have will have to World-class too.

Swindon's Regeneration : Frozen In Time

You know a place is special when it gives off an atmosphere, a feeling that you can't quite put your finger on. These combine to convey the importance, effectiveness and the weight of a place.

With the crane still and the clock frozen at 11 minutes past 5.

 I had that feeling the instant I stepped into the Long Shop, the last remaining building on the old rail works site in Swindon without a use. The air had a thick smell of engine oil, no doubt the smell has seeped into the structure since it's opening in 1847. The thick walls and floor gave the place that cathedral-like peacefulness, there was no sound of traffic, or of passersby. A couple of times a train ran past and the calm was briefly interrupted.

The sunlight was streaming through the south-facing windows, giving a regular pattern on the dust-covered floor. The Long Shop originally closed for business in 1986 and is frozen in time. Stopped clocks are complimented by the locker-rooms which still have rail workers names on them.

26 years since Davies and Jones used these lockers in the former British Rail Long Shop

The owners of the Long Shop and the majority of the former Works site are Henderson Global Investors (who own the management company for the Outlet, McArthurGlen) and at the end of the month their plans for a £35 million extension of the centre into the Long Shop will be decided.

After so long, this place that hangs heavy with the memories of the past, will be visited by millions of people into the future.