Swindon in the Past Lane

Today is quite possibly your last chance to have your say about the future of Lydiard House and Park. The second of two public engagement days takes place in the Visitor Centre, Lydiard Park from 9.30 am to 3.30 pm.  Feel free to print off this list. Swindon Borough Council have appointed independent property advisor Bilfinger GVA to identify joint venture partners. Meanwhile adverts have been placed in trade journals and newspapers to invite organisations to submit proposals to help make Lydiard House and Park more sustainable and to reduce the local authority's £450,000 annual subsidy. These are my ideas, arrived at with the help of the people of Swindon, who were gifted the property in 1943 when a visionary, philanthropic Swindon Corporation bought the Lydiard Park estate. The list just keeps on growing! Lydiard House Unique selling point – scandal Tell the story of the St John family The links with the Tudors (perennially popular with children and adults ali...

It's more than two years since the Woodville  re-enactors last visited Lydiard Park. They camped in the park where they told the story of the War of the Roses (with weapons), gave demonstrations of medieval crafts and a display of archery in the Walled Garden. Philippa Gregory tells the story of the Cousins' War (same event, different name) and the Woodville family. Both versions have a direct connection to Lydiard House and the rise of the Tudor family. Let's have a Woodville Fest with the re-enactors AND a Philippa Gregory talk/book signing with a showing of an episode of the White Queen. How fantastic would that be? Important notice:

Heiress Margaret Beauchamp, Henry VII's grandmother, owned Lydiard Park in 1420. Her daughter, Margaret Beaufort, Henry's mother, was very close to her St John half siblings, finding them places at court and arranging advantageous marriages for her extended family, In August 1592 Elizabeth I called in at Lydiard House on her summer progress. She held a privy council meeting at the house and knighted her cousin of the half blood John St John during her stay. So why aren't we bigging up the Tudor connections at Lydiard House? Telegraph journalist Hannah Betts describes the enduring appeal of the Tudors in this entertaining article. Follow the link to read the full feature. If history is reducible to one era for us Brits, it is the Tudor period. Even before the phenomenon that is Wolf Hall, our favourite version of Ye Olden Dayes was that with codpieces, ruffs, beheadings, and irascible redheads. Blame it on Shakespeare, blame it on 'Enery the Eighth, putting t...

In 1420 eleven year old Margaret Beauchamp became sole heir to her father's considerable estate, including some 3,000 acres in the parish of Lydiard Tregoze. Five years later she married Sir Oliver St John, when the St John story at Lydiard House begins. A house has stood on the site of the Palladian mansion in Lydiard Park since the 13th century and until 1943, when it was purchased by Swindon Corporation, had just five owners, the Tregoze, Grandison, Beauchamp and St John families. During the 500 years of St John occupancy the house had the odd makeover, was remodelled in the middle of the 18th century and then left in a state of benign neglect until the death of Lady Bolingbroke in 1940 when the trustees of her will put the property on the market. For more than 70 years the local authority has restored and refurbished the fabric of the building, tracked down and purchased furniture and artefacts that once belonged to the house, including numerous stunning portraits and p...