English: 114 and 115 Rosebery Street, Swindon On 20th October 1940, Swindon experienced its first night bombing. An unidentified bomber on a north-south line dropped three bombs, two high-explosive and one incendiary shortly after 22.00 hours. One of the bombs landed in Rosebery Street and destroyed or severely damaged numbers 115 to 120, on the western side of that street. Unfortunately the bomb caused a number of casualties. There were ten confirmed fatalities and an uncertain number of injured persons.

After the war was over the destroyed houses were replaced by new ones built to the same basic design but using different materials and along utilitarian lines. This image shows the houses as they are now and, although they will have been modernised in the intervening years, they remain noticeably different from their older neighbours. The bay windows lack the decorative stonework that graced the original houses and, although the current windows are PVCu, as rebuilt they would have been steel casements in place of the original timber sash windows.

In this image number 114, the house at the left, was not destroyed by the bomb and remains much as it would have looked when originally built about 100 years ago although the original timber sash windows have been replaced by PVCu and the flat roof over the bay has been changed to a pitched roof.

The house to the right is number 115 and is one of those which was rebuilt after the war.