A bountiful harvest

‘Lydiard and the neighbourhood are remarkably well wooded. Oak is abundant though it is observed that the trees never reach that enormous size which astonishes one in other localities. There is a curious legend about these oak trees. Ages ago a member of the Bolingbroke family rendered some important service to an English monarch. In return he received a grant of the lands of Lydiard until he should have taken three crops off them, after which they were to revert to the Crown.

The wily nobleman had the lands sown with acorns and hazel nuts, which shot up into oaks and hazel woods, and the Bolingbrokes have not cleared their first crop yet. Such is the story.’

Jefferies Land - A History of Swindon and its Environs

By the late Richard Jefferies

Published MDCCCXCVI

One of the earliest references to Lydiard is in Domesday published in 1086 when it is recorded that the manor had previously belonged to Alfred of Marlborough. It was acquired by the Tregoze family at the end of the 12^th century and a royal reference was made in 1270 when Henry III granted Robert Tregoze a royal licence to impark woodland and create a deer park.

But the Jefferies reference implies a much later royal favour as he mentions the Bolingbroke family. Viscount Bolingbroke was a title bestowed upon Henry St John in 1712. The St John family had inherited the Lydiard property through a marriage between heiress Margaret Beauchamp and Oliver St John in c1420.  Perhaps the Jefferies story came from a similar source to the one who told me the heart-breaking tale of a bereaved mother and two trees.

Several years ago, I was told the sad story of a grieving mother who planted two trees on the front lawn of Lydiard House in memory of the sons she lost fighting in the Civil Wars.

The mother in question was Anne Leighton, Lady St John, the wife of Sir John St John, 1^st Baronet. But there were a few inconsistencies in the story. Firstly, three sons not two fell during the 17^thcentury wars, and there was an even greater problem – Anne Leighton, the mother in question, died following the birth of her 13^th child in 1628, long before the outbreak of war.

But then, I reflected, perhaps it was the action of a grieving stepmother, Sir John’s second wife, Margaret Whitmore, Lady Grobham. She married Sir John two years after the death of his first wife Anne and played an active role in raising his young family. But Lady Margaret died in 1637, several years before the death of her Cavalier stepsons.

I duly reported all this back to the teller of the tale. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘it makes a good story,’ a sentiment with which the Richard Jefferies informant would probably have agreed.

Meanwhile I’m creating my own little piece of arboretum history. At the first sign of autumn I beetle up to Lydiard before the children get their hands on the fallen conkers. And here is my nursery of horse chestnut trees. Should be a few years before I’ve harvested my three crops.