[5][6] The McArthurGlen Designer Outlet is housed in the renovated former works and the Brunel Shopping Centre is one of several places in Swindon that bear the name of the famous engineer generally acknowledged with bringing the railways to the town.

[7][8] Despite the subsequent decline and closure of its railway works, Swindon was one of the fastest growing towns in Europe post-war as its economy diversified, attracting large international companies, who made use of its burgeoning population and strategic transport links.

Lydiard Park has hosted festivals such as BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, while the Swindon Mela, an all-day celebration of South Indian arts and culture, attracts up to 10,000 visitors a year.

It is referred to in the 1086 Domesday Book as Suindune,[2] believed to be derived from the Old English words "swine" and "dun" meaning "pig hill" or possibly Sweyn's hill, Sweyn being a Scandinavian name akin to Sven and English swain, meaning a young man.

[18] After the Norman Conquest, Swindon was split into five holdings: the largest was held between Miles Crispin and Odin the Chamberlain,[2] and the second by Wadard, a knight in the service of Odo of Bayeux, brother of the king.

[18][page needed] The manors of Westlecot, Walcot, Rodbourne, Moredon and Stratton are also listed; all are now part of Swindon.

Between 1841 and 1842, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Swindon Works was built for the repair and maintenance of locomotives on the Great Western Railway (GWR).

In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works, and nine years later opened its first dental surgery.

The New Swindon Improvement Company, a co-operative, raised the funds for this programme of self-improvement and paid the GWR £40 a year for its new home on a site at the heart of the railway village.

[20] The Mechanics' Institute had the UK's first lending library,[4] and a range of improving lectures, access to a theatre and various other activities, such as ambulance classes and xylophone lessons.

[21] When tuberculosis hit the new town, the Mechanics' Institute persuaded the industrial pioneers of North Wiltshire to agree that the railway's former employees should continue to receive medical attention from the doctors of the GWR Medical Society Fund, which the institute had played a role in establishing and funding.

Another factor limiting local decision-taking was the continuing role of Wiltshire County Council in the administration of Swindon.

In October 2008, Swindon Council made a controversial move to ban fixed point speed cameras.

[35] The main areas targeted were Union Square, The Promenade, The Hub, Swindon Central, North Star Village, The Campus, and the Public Realm.

Swindon is a town in northeast Wiltshire, 35 miles (56 km) west-northwest of Reading and the same distance east-northeast of Bristol 'as the crow flies'.

The nearest official weather station is RAF Lyneham, about 10 miles (16 km) west southwest of Swindon town centre.

Sunshine, at 1,565 hours a year, is typical for inland parts of Southern England, although significantly higher than most areas further north.

[61] After the end of World War II, Polish refugees were temporarily housed in barracks at RAF Fairford, about 25 km (16 mi) to the north.

[63] The 2001 UK Census found that most of the Polish-born people had stayed or returned after serving with British forces during World War II.

[65] Notes to those data read: "The Polish Resettlement Act of 1947, which was designed to provide help and support to people who wished to settle here, covered about 190,000 people ... at the time Britain did not recognise many of the professional [qualifications] gained overseas ... [but] many did find work after the war; some went down the mines, some worked on the land or in steelworks.

NHS planners devising services for senior citizens estimated in 1994 that 5% of Swindon's population were not 'ethnically British',[66] and most of those were culturally Polish.

Barman Jerzy Trojan blamed the decline of both club and team on the children and grandchildren of the original refugees losing their Polish identity.

[76] Major employers in the town include BMW/Mini (formerly Pressed Steel Fisher) in Stratton, Dolby Labs, international engineering consultancy firm Halcrow, and retailer W H Smith's distribution centre and headquarters.

Swindon was for a time a centre of excellence for 3G and 4G mobile telecommunications research and development for Motorola, Lucent Technologies (later Alcatel-Lucent), Nokia Siemens Networks and Cisco.

[citation needed] The factory built in 1998 for Motorola's GSM division at Groundwell, north Swindon, has been described as "striking and futuristic".

[80] On 8 October 2019, GWR posted a modern speed record when an Intercity Express Train took 44 minutes to travel from Swindon to London Paddington.

Swindon is the setting for the Thursday Next series of novels by Jasper Fforde[106] and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

touting the future institution to be entitled 'The Murray John University, Swindon', after the town's most distinguished post-war civic leader).

English Rugby player Jonny May lived in Chiseldon and attended The Ridgeway School & Sixth Form College located in Wroughton, both nearby villages to Swindon.

Swindon Robins is a speedway team competing in the top national division, the SGB Premiership, where they were champions in the 2017 season.