The members of Swindon WI put their best foot forward on Saturday evening when they were among 700 people who took part in the Prospect Hospice fund raising Starlight Walk. The WI members braved torrential rain to complete the 10k walk as part of their 2016 Walking Challenge. Conditions were marginally better yesterday when I joined them for a guided walk around Old Town following in the footsteps of Swindon Suffragette Edith New and other Old Town women. First stop was Apsley House, which today houses the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery but was once home to the Toomer family. In the 1870s Apsley House was an L shaped property with land stretching back as far as the cottages on Prospect Place and boasted not only a coal yard but formal gardens and a paddock. A photograph on display in the museum shows one of the Toomer daughters on her pony at the back of the house, giving some idea of the the extent of the property. Following John Toomer's death in 1882 five of his ...