Swindon in the Past Lane

Did you know that our neck of the woods was once just that - part of a wood, a very big wood? And not just any old wood but a Royal forest no less - Braydon Forest. The origins of Braydon Forest date back to the 9th century and a belt of woodland stretching from the Thame Valley to the Vale of Blackmore and known to the Saxons as Sealwudu. The Saxon lords were pretty easy going, it would appear, and then along came the Normans with their system of forest law, courts and officialdom. Braydon became a royal forest by 1135 and in the 13th century it contained an area of some 46 square miles. The forest bounds included not only woodland but fields of arable, meadow and pasture and even villages such as those of Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Millicent and Purton. In 1256, during the reign of Henry III the king gave Robert Tregoze 3 bucks and 8 does from Braydon to restock his park at Lydiard Tregoze and in 1270 John Tregoze obtained a royal licence to 'inclose and impark' his woo...

Taken from the 1773 Andrews & Drury map of North Wiltshire A middle aged woman fends off a violent intruder and one local man had a very close call when a night time burglary didn’t go according to plan in October 1850. Miss Keziah Prior was well known in Lydiard Millicent where she kept a small grocer’s shop.  In 1851 the population of the North Wiltshire village was just 491.  Thomas Sadler farmed at Shaw where the parish boundary met that of Lydiard Tregoze.  John Bewley was at Parkside Farm, the former dower house of the St John family at Lydiard Park while John Hinder was at Parsonage Farm and the wealthy Mary Tuckey at Lower Shaw. Miss Sarah Hawkins was the schoolmistress and Thomas Howard the blacksmith.  There were just four shops in the village.  John Cowley and John Newith are both described as shopkeepers in trade directories of the time, while William Mouldon was a baker and shopkeeper and Keziah Prior ran a small grocer’s shop. ...

School logbooks are a valuable source of local knowledge, providing a snap shot of a locality and even the name of a young ancestor - especially if they were naughty! Built in 1841 on land provided by Rev. Henry Streeten, 'adjacent to the Butts' the school in Lydiard Millicent opened in 1842. The logbooks held at the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives date from 1870 and the appointment of Miss Hannah Shore. Despite all efforts to get them into school, hard-pressed rural families often kept children at home. Boys were put to work on local farms during busy times and education versus a few coins towards the family income was always a hard fought battle. Hannah Shore writes on June 30, 1871 - 'Many of the children away on account of the haymaking.' From 1880 education became compulsory for children up to the age of 10, yet in 1891 schoolmaster Francis Drew was to write in the Lydiard Millicent school logbook - 'Lucy Leonard who has been absent 158 times during t...