St Mark's Church, Swindon

St Mark's was built to serve workers of the Great Western Railway, whose Swindon Works were nearby. George Henry Gibbs, the head of the merchant bank Anthony Gibbs & Sons who died in 1842, bequeathed £500 towards building a church and a school in the town. In February 1843, the railway company appealed for contributions from the public, and a total of £6,000 (equivalent to £|r=-4}}}} in ) was raised to build the church. The church was designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Moffatt, and built between 1843 and 1845. It was dedicated to St Mark on 25 April 1845, St Mark's Day. In 1897 Temple Moore added a north vestry. The parish is within the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of…

Inside the church, the arcades are carried on quatrefoil piers. The nave has a hammerbeam roof, and the roof of the chancel is barrel vaulted. The stained glass includes windows by Kempe. There is a ring of eight bells. Six of these were cast in 1904 by Llewellins and James, and the other two in 1927 by Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

Monument to Emma Brent Gooch (1872) and her husband William Frederick Gooch (1915). William was the youngest brother of Sir Daniel Gooch, trained as an engineer under him, and became manager of the GWR Works. He died in 1915 and is buried elsewhere, but is commemorated by the addition of an inscription to his wife's monument. In 2016, the tomb which had been lost beneath undergrowth was uncovered and cleaned as part of the Swindon 175 commemorations.