Swindon in the Past Lane

I'd love to see a photograph of Walter Ody - I feel I know him so well. Born in 1833 at Hayes Knowle Farm in Purton, Walter was the third youngest of Noah and Sarah's nine surviving children. Noah was an expert at keeping the proverbial farming plates spinning and even when the boys were still quite young he managed to organise several leases. Walter married Elizabeth Russell in the Spring of 1861 and the census of that year sees them living at Lord Bolingbroke's Flaxlands Farm with his widowed mother Sarah, his sister Leticia and Elizabeth's two year old son William James Russell. So what else do I know about Walter Ody? Well I know he served the community in various roles within the parish and in 1894 he was one of the first members to be elected onto the new parish council  He was also a trustee of the St John's Chancel Trust, charged with maintaining the magnificent St John memorials. As a more mature man he proved he was ready to embrace new technolog...

If you enjoy the guided walks at Radnor Street Cemetery, you may like to join me on a new venture, exploring the churchyard at the historic St Mary’s Church in Lydiard Park. A church has stood on this site for more than 1,000 years and the building that survives is full of historic gems. Sir Simon Jenkins, columnist, editor, author and former Chair of the National Trust said ‘were it to be removed lock stock and barrel to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London it would cause a national sensation’. Until the 1980s West Swindon development, St Mary’s Church had been at the centre of a small rural parish where tenant farmers and agricultural workers worshipped, married, brought their babies to be christened and were eventually laid to rest in the churchyard. Today some of the farmhouses still survive, among them Brook House Farm, which is a pub and Toothill Farm, a community centre and although former farmland has disappeared beneath the housing developments the h...