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...

I wrote this blog post two years ago! November 2015 and Swindon Borough Council continue to ensure us that there are no plans to sell off Lydiard House and Park but to lease it out to partners, drawing on the so say success of the recent handover of our leisure centres.  But I feel there are other options we could try first before the local authority makes such a drastic move.  Come along to my talk this evening 'Who Would Live in a House Like This? at Swindon Central Library, November 5, 7.15. Perhaps the St John family could save Lydiard House more than 70 years after they packed up and moved out. September 15, 2013. This week I intended writing an affectionate, whimsical piece – about my little granddaughter and all things Lower Shaw Farm related, about the Mela and the wonderful Dorothy Clarke and how the amazing Bhangra drummers quite alarmingly changed the rhythm to which my heart beat - no seriously. And I was going to write about samos...