Swan Street

If there are existing pictures of Swan Street, could someone please help me locate them? Thank you.

Another plea for Swan Street, as one of my grandfathers and his family were shown living there on the 1911 census.

Mine too, DBC, at number 18!

Mine were at number 5!

Not really on topic, but this thread contains several references to Swan Street and I've found some distant relatives of mine living there in 1841. I've discovered that on familysearch and possibly other genealogy sites, the census for this street and maybe others have been indexed as if in Holy Trinity, Weymouth, Dorset! So this is a warning to future researchers that their ancestors may appear to have moved 200 km (120 miles).

Hi mcsporran, are they still there? Here's the 1911 directory for Swan street.

We seem to have more resources for photos recently so I am hopeful that a picture of Swan Street can be found. Perhaps there are other streets that newer members of the forum would like to add to the list?

Where is/was Swan Street?

It ran between Leicester Street and Henry Street. I believe it was destroyed in the blitz but I may be wrong. I'll ask my mum. It can be seen on the 1937 street map.

Ah, I see it now. It was gone by 1950 so it does look like a victim of the war. It might have been too small to be photographed and there doesn't look like there was a shop or a pub that might have been captured on a post card. It might be visible from the air - I'll look when BFTA is back up.

Swan Street is on the 1951 HC map. Wakelins street guide of 1945 included Swan Street. It seems later to have become the entrance to a car park.

I just talked to my mother - her grandparents lived at 18 Swan Street for many years. She remembers the houses as having top shops. Mum says the whole street was flattened in the blitz along with some of the neighboring streets and the streets themselves remained but there was no redevelopment for many years. There were stables in the Henry/Tower Street area and a tremendous effort was made to save the panicked horses. The Co-op owned the stables and the horses were used for coal deliveries. A great-uncle of mine worked for the Co-op at an earlier date and the horse would be walked from the stables up to Gosford Green to be hitched to the wagon.

The closest I can find is this picture of damage to Henry Street looking through to what I think is the corner of Tower Street. Swan Street may have looked similar although the properties looked smaller.

A quick look at the newspaper archives did not produce a photo but during the 1914-18 war period there seemed to be an unusually large number of casualties reported for such a small street. I wonder if there were recruits for a pals battalion from the young men of that street and if there is a record of it.