Our May talk via Zoom was given by Sarah Finch-Crisp, Chair of Lydiard Park Friends on the Lydiard Archives. They are a unique digital collection of objects, records, reports and ephemera documenting the thousand year history of Lydiard House and Park, managed by the Friends of Lydiard Park, an independent charity formed to protect, conserve and educate people about the beautiful historic estate with its Palladian house, ancient church, walled garden and rolling countryside. It was fascinating to hear so much of the history of this beautiful place, and how much work the Friends have put into raising the profile of Lydiard estate and attracting finance to maintain it.
How did the Lydiard estate come to be owned by the people of Swindon? Two families, the Bollingbrokes and the St.Johns were unable to maintain Lydiard estate in the 1950, and like many stately homes, it seemed Lydiard House would be demolished, however David Murray John ensured this didn't happen, the then Swindon Corporation bought the house and 147 acres of land for £4500 in 1943, ensuring it could be enjoyed by future generations. In 2015 its future was uncertain when Swindon Borough Council wanted to privatise the estate, the threat to its future was overcome when 750 people attended Lydiard Park Academy to keep it in public ownership.
Sarah gave a fascinating insight into life in and around this area of Swindon by a fabulous PowerPoint presentation, I took 24 photos of the computer screen during the talk and will add 22 of them here to give you an idea of the sort of things Sarah talked about.
It is probably better to click on the links above because the writing here is a bit small, but gives you an idea, hopefully of the range and scope of the talk.
Sarah talked firstly about the many things that the Friends of Lydiard do.
As a member, I can say that they organise a lot of interesting activities
I attended the Christmas social pictured below
Below some of the publications from the last 50 years
Below an example of the work undertaken by volunteers.
A photo of the rally at Lydiard Park Academy in 2015. I was there, the strength of feeling was amazing
And then moved on to examples of the sort of thing in the Archives
Starting with their goals
and the sort of things they work with
Photos of the Bollingbrokes and tea on the lawn at the turn of the last century
School photo from 1928
Below a photo of a medal awarded to Earnest Titcombe for best school gardens in 1890
A thousand year old oak tree felled in 1945 with some schoolchildren posing for scale
Greenhill Carnival Queen in the 1950s and Malcolm Titcombe in the insert
Photos of Miriam Titcombe, village Constable with her walnut truncheon
Below the Gough brothers in the 1930s
There's lots to be learned from reading diaries written at the time
A photo of Lydiard Park Social Club in the 1950s
The military required Lydiard Park during 1943-48, it became a German prisoner of war hospital, and after the war, the huts erected on the site were converted in the 1950s and 60s as homes for local people
These photos show Roy Webb putting up replacement wallpaper in 1983
All that remains is to thank Sarah Finch-Crisp again for the wonderfully informative talk and direct readers to visit the house, church and grounds and support them in any way you can.
