Swindon in the Past Lane

Lady Johanna St John's 1680 book of pills, potions and plasters is a rare survivor of the type of manual every well to do 17th century woman compiled. A collection of recipes recorded for their efficiency, part of her housekeeping arsenal against the myriad of marauding illnesses. The book is held at the   Wellcome Library   and is available to view online. Lady Johanna, doyenne of Lydiard Park, collected recipes from doctors, family members and even her servants. A poultice for a Burne or Scald Blast Bite or St Antonys Fire (an inflammation of the skin) was recommended by her servant Susan Foot. The ingredients included: 'Pikked Ivie that runns upon the ground; a pound of hard Kidney mutton suit and a pennyworth of salad oyle'. Grace Bennett's 1930s school exercise book is another rare survivor, if less famous, and provides an equally foreign glimpse but this time into the fairly recent past. Grace was a pupil at Newbury Park Senior Girls School, Ilford and ...

Staff and volunteers have decked the hall with boughs of holly and Lydiard House is all dressed up for a Victorian Christmas. But how did an earlier branch of the family celebrate the festive season? Custodians of the 17th century Lydiard House were Sir Walter St John and his wife Lady Johanna. In 1652 the austere Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, abolished Christmas all together and for eight years the people of Britain had little celebrate. However, with the restoration of the merry making monarch Charles II in 1660 it was party time again and records show that plans for Christmas at Lydiard House in 1661 were well underway by October. "I doe intend gd wiling to be at Cristmas at Lidiard," wrote Lady Johanna St John from the couple's London home in Battersea to Thomas Hardyman her steward at Lydiard. Ahead of the festivities Lady Johanna instructs Hardyman to brew 40 gallons of ale "so that it may be a month old before we begin it." However the ...