Arkell’s home page – pub accommodation, food and drink in the south of England
  • Host:
  • Kay Gould
  • Where:
  • 16 Emlyn Square
  • Swindon
  • Wiltshire SN1 5BN
  • Telephone:
  • (01793) 535199
  • Facilities:
  • Architectural Interest
  • Car Park
  • Pub Food
  • Map:
  • Click Here for a Map to The Bakers Arms, Swindon

The Bakers Arms, Swindon

The Bakers Arms, Swindon - Click to enlarge

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Originally owned by the Great Western Railway, the freehold of The Bakers Arms is now held by Swindon Council as it lies at the heart of the town's historic Railway Village in an award-winning area of special social and architectural interest.

All three of the Bakers Arms owned by Arkell's were once bakers' shop and the Swindon one still has traces of the ovens in the lounge bar to prove it. However, it was a bakehouse only briefly.

Plans for six shops and adjoining blocks of railwaymen's cottages in the Railway Village were submitted by Isambard Kingdom Brunel's own office in 1845 and completed the following year.

The shop at the corner of High Street (now called Emlyn Square) and Bath Street (now Bathampton Street) was let to William Perris who converted it into a bakehouse, but only two years later the lease passed to Richard Allnutt who turned it back into a straightforward retail shop following the GWR's construction of a larger bakehouse closeby.

At some stage Allnutt also sold beer here and must have prospered because he remained until 1880, the lease eventually passing to Arkell's.

Though it was refurbished in 1961, The Bakers Arms is still a plain and simple pub today, just as it was all those years ago. In fact, it has fared rather better than the Mechanics' Institute, which stands opposite. This building, arguably Swindon's most historic, is certainly the most neglected.

Fortunately, The Bakers Arms has been left largely unspoiled by the passing of time and visitors find that it takes little effort to imagine how it must have been throughout the railway works' heyday. The main works entrance was literally only a stone's throw away and it was for The Bakers Arms that generations of railway workers headed to quench their thirst.

The railway works are now gone, but The Bakers Arms goes on. The very same route that the workers took to and from work can now be trod by shoppers who flock to the Designer Outlet Village on part of the old factory site. The Bakers Arms perfectly combines a taste of Swindon's railway heritage with a taste of its Arkell's heritage and is only a short walk away.

Detailed plans of the building are held by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and can be viewed at the commission's National Monuments Record Office in Swindon, which is also situated on part of the old railway works site.