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This Victorian building was built by the Great Western Railway company as a drill hall and armoury where 150 employees of the Company were formed into the XI Wiltshire Volunteer Rifle Corps. The reason for this was the fear that Napoleon IIII of France would invade and attack the works. In 1871 the defeat of France by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war meant that the risk of French invasion was effectively over and the building was converted into a hospital for GWR employees and families. For a small weekly deduction from their pay the workers and dependants could obtain free medical care. It was still in use in the 1940s and was visited by ministers of the 1945-50 Labour government who incorporated aspects of the way the hospital service was run into the National Health Service. It is now a thriving community centre.