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 history lives on
among the names on the gravestones in the churchyard.
At St Mary’s Church, Lydiard Park the conservation project
continues apace as the appeal team prepares to submit a revised Heritage
Lottery Fund application, emphasising the projects involvement with the local
community and visitors to Lydiard House and Park.
The main focus of the ongoing project is the conservation of
the extensive medieval wall paintings. At the recent Behind Closed Doors series
of talks and tours held at Lydiard House during the close session, internationally
acclaimed conservator Jane Rutherford, spoke about her work on the 18th
century Reredos and East Chancel wall.
But this isn’t the extent of the work going on at St Mary’s.
Next on the list is the conservation of the medieval glass painted by itinerant
Flemish craftsmen who used local people as their models. Then there is a long
list of work planned on dilapidated woodwork, the rare James I screen, the
gilded altar rails and the star spangled chancel ceiling. The present entrance
at the west door will become a welcoming interpretation and activity area.
These works will provide valuable training opportunities for
newly qualified and apprentice craftspeople to work alongside expert
conservators as well as workshops and events for the public.
The project also plans to re-open the hidden south porch,
closed in around 1830 when Henry, 4th Viscount Bolingbroke, did a
land deal with the church to demolish the old rectory and build a new one
opposite the park entrance. Further alterations to the House saw Henry divert
the hoi polloi from traipsing past his backdoor and through the south porch to
Sunday worship, coming instead along His Lordship’s Carriageway, entering the
church by the west door.
New interpretation inside the building will reveal the
history and fascinating stories behind the people associated with it over the
centuries, highlighting the connections between the church, house and historic
landscape of Lydiard Park.
The Church is open to visitors every Saturday and Sunday
afternoon while volunteers from the National Association of Decorative and
Fines Arts Societies (NADFAS) are on hand to show visitors round from 11 – 4 pm
on Friday.
The magnificent St John polyptych will be on view to the
public on Sunday afternoons in June. Come and enjoy a Strawberry Tea outside
the Stable Room and join me for a guided walk of the historic churchyard
between 2 – 4.30 on June 19 and 26.
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| the grave of Catherine Iles |
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| view across the churchyard |
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| John Jeremiah St John |
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| Mark of a master glazier |
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| detail from one of the headstones |
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| Creeches Farm |
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