Swindon in the Past Lane

“Welcome to my office,” said Joe as he led the Friends of Lydiard Park group from the visitor’s centre along a winding pathway which opened up on to a breath-taking view. Croome Court has been a work in progress for more than 260 years as restoration continues today. The 6 th Earl of Coventry’s £400,000 (worth £35 million in today’s money) project began in 1751 with the building of a Palladian mansion and a landscaped parkland and work continued throughout the 18 th  centuries. Croome Court was sold in 1948 following the death of the 10 th Earl at Dunkirk in 1940. The National Trust acquired 670 acres of the Park in 1996 and in 2007 the Croome Heritage Trust bought Croome Court and leased it to the National Trust on a 999 year lease. The house opened to the public on September 26, 2009. The 6 th Earl of Coventry inherited Croome Court in 1751 when he was 28 years old, but he already had a vision for his family home. He engaged Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (who design...

Is democracy dead in this country? If you were at last night's Council Meeting at the Civic Offices you could be forgiven for thinking it is in Swindon. Personally, I am governed by a political party I didn't vote for at either national or local level, but hey ho, I suppose this is a drawback of the democratic process. But do these people I didn't vote for have carte blanche to impose upon me decisions with which I seriously disagree. Is there no room for appeal or debate, even compromise? Well at local level apparently not. Swindon Borough Council is hell bent on leasing out Lydiard House and Park with the matter of the Council subsidy of £450,000 constantly quoted. Members protest that their aim is to reduce the council subsidy and, with the aid of a private sector partner or partners, generate new and sustainable forms of income. A number of experts in the field believe that this is possible while keeping the Grade I Palladian mansion and Grade II listed parkla...

I don't very often leave the confines of Swindon, but I recently marked a significant birthday and my daughter treated me to a weekend in France to lessen the pain. We had a wonderful, if frenetic, two days courtesy of Newmarket Holidays and saw some amazing sights. We stayed at the Best Western, St Quentin, Maurepas, an adequate hotel where they were oddly very precious about how many croissants one ate at breakfast, and woe betide guests if you messed up the ticket system, as I managed to! Our first trip was to Monet's magnificent gardens at Giverny. Now, I hate to be a typical moaning Brit abroad, but really, the National Trust would do it so much better! Monet moved to the idyllic village of Giverny in 1883 where he began work on the garden that inspired him for more than 43 years. Ten years after moving in, Monet bought a neighbouring piece of land where he created his water gardens, inspired by the Japanese gardens he loved so much. Sadly today the gardens are separ...

To the inexperienced eye the barn at Great Coxwell might appear big, but apparently as monastic barns go, it’s a bit on the small side.  Measuring 152 feet and 7 bays long, records reveal examples of others double that length. Situated along the Hollow Road, the medieval barn formed part of the monastic farm or grange belonging to Beaulieu Abbey.  Built in around 1300 the Cotswold rubble-stone walled barn with purlin roof is today admired for its architectural features.  But those medieval builders knew a thing or two about efficiency and everything was designed to make life just a little easier for both builders and the over worked agricultural labourer. The canny 14 th century architects sited the barn on a natural stony outcrop thereby avoiding the need to dig foundations and prolong building work.  The barn itself was constructed by a team of masons and carpenters.  The square holes in the walls, ‘putlog holes,’ supported the builders s...