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Market Hall
Today in the East End of London a group of dedicated people are trying to save the Smithfield General Market Hall -'Behold the winged lion on the Holborn Viaduct looking down protectively upon the...
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James Hinton
With the announcement of plans for Swindon Remembers - Battle of Britain 75 and events at Radnor Street Cemetery we revisit the story of James Hinton, who in 1881 sold the plot of land on which the...
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Farm Cottages at Shaw
Boundary changes in 1928 added areas of Chiseldon, Wroughton, Lydiard Tregoze and Lydiard Millicent to the parish of Swindon. By the 1960s town planners were looking for a suitable site for a rubbish...
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Criminal Intent and the wilful Edith New
In July 2015 the first publicity material was released for a new film called Suffragette. The fight for female enfranchisement had ended in 1928 when the final restrictions were removed and all women...
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On the campaign trail
Edith travelled the country in her role as an organiser in the Women’s Social and Political Union and in February 1909 she was on the campaign trail at a by-election in the Scottish border town of...
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Celebrating Edith New
Today I took a very wet walk around Old Town with BBC Wiltshire presenter Marie Lennon, pointing out places significant to Edith New more than a hundred years ago.Local woman Edith joined the Women’s...
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Celebrating Edith New (Part 2)
A sell out attendance at the talk last night at Central Library, Swindon and how lucky were we to have Tamara, Edith's great-niece as guest of honour?Tamara made the journey from Leicester to share...
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Suffragette
On general release from today, the film Suffragette puts fictional character Maud Watts at the very heart of the Votes for Women campaign.The film focuses on the increasingly violent tactics employed...
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Edith New makes headline news in the Swindon Advertiser
About forty people joined the Swindon Suffragette team on a guided walk around Old Town today visiting the places significant to Edith New, the Swindon born suffragette, who was the first to to chain...
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A soul snatched out of hell
Suffragette, the first film to portrait the working class woman's involvement with the Votes for Women campaign, features an early scene where laundry worker Maud Watts gets caught up in the great...
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March of the Women
Yesterday saw the culmination of our Swindon Suffragette celebrations with a march through Old Town and a rally in the Radnor Street Cemetery chapel.Members of the Swindon Community Choir greeted the...
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Who would live in a house like this?
In 1420 eleven year old Margaret Beauchamp became sole heir to her father's considerable estate, including some 3,000 acres in the parish of Lydiard Tregoze. Five years later she married Sir Oliver St...
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The End of an Era
When Lady Bolingbroke died in 1940 she left the house and what remained of the Lydiard Park estate to the administration of her trustees. Her son Vernon inherited the silver, pictures, furniture, books...
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Harry Gough - first caretaker at the publicly owned Lydiard House.
In 1943 Harry Gough sold the properties he owned at Washpool and with his wife and two daughters moved into the mansion house at Lydiard Park, the first caretaker to be appointed following the purchase...
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The murderous Viscount St John.
Councillors faced a barrage of questions about the future of Lydiard House and Park at a packed West Swindon Locality Meeting at the Link Centre Library on Monday evening.In the absence of Michael Bray...
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Lord Bolingbroke lets off steam!
Henry Mildmay, 5th Viscount Bolingbroke spent just two months of the year, during the shooting season, at his country home of Lydiard, where it has to be said, he liked it to be above all - quiet. But...
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Lydiard House and Park - safe?
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...
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A passionate affair
Last night I gave a sell out talk in a packed reading room at Swindon Central Library. Now that's not me showing off. I freely admit that I am not the world's best public speaker (at least this time I...
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Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine
For those of you who came to my talk 'Who Would Live in a House Like This? and would like to know more about Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, well here she is. “God bless our good and...
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To Swindon Borough Council with love - and free of charge!
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...
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