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Lydiard Park
Lydiard Park is a 260-acre (110-hectare) country park at Lydiard Tregoze, which was its former name, about 3 miles (5 km) west of central Swindon, Wiltshire, England, in West Swindon parish, near Junction 16 of the M4 motorway.
The park, which is included on the Historic England Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II, surrounds the Grade I listed Lydiard House, a mansion built in the 17th and 18th centuries.
A settlement at Lediar, with woodland, is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and was owned by the Tregoze family from about 1198. In 1259, Henry III gave Robert Tregoze a royal licence to create a deer park in nearby woodland. In 1420 the estate came by marriage to the St John family (whose seat was at Battersea, London), and they owned it until the Second World War.
Formal gardens and a canal were created as part of changes made to the medieval house in the 17th century; Sir John St John also laid out a series of formal avenues. However, many of the formal elements of the park had been removed by 1766. Surviving features from the 18th century include a semi-underground listed ice house and a walled garden, with a bronze sundial at its centre. Large parts of the park were sold off in the 1920s and 1930s.
From 1942 the park was used as a military hospital by the American Forces, and then between about 1943 and about March 1946 it was a Prisoner of War hospital for German soldiers as POW camp No.160. In 1943, Councillor and Alderman Francis Akers bought the estate and the dilapidated house at auction and sold the whole to the local authority, the Corporation of Swindon, for £4,500.[citation needed]
Since 1955, the park has been open to the public all year round. The park was designated Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1987, as an example of a mid-18th century park having archaeological evidence of its 17th-century formal layout. The walls of the walled garden are Grade II listed as is the sundial within it.
In 2005, Swindon Borough Council received £3m from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards a restoration project which included reinstating a two-acre lake. The park hosted Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2009.
In 2017, the park was transferred from Lydiard Tregoze parish to the newly created West Swindon parish.
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Lydiard Park
Lydiard Park is a 260-acre (110-hectare) country park at Lydiard Tregoze, which was its former name, about 3 miles (5 km) west of central Swindon, Wiltshire, England, in West Swindon parish, near Junction 16 of the M4 motorway.
The park, which is included on the Historic England Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II, surrounds the Grade I listed Lydiard House, a mansion built in the 17th and 18th centuries.
A settlement at Lediar, with woodland, is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and was owned by the Tregoze family from about 1198. In 1259, Henry III gave Robert Tregoze a royal licence to create a deer park in nearby woodland. In 1420 the estate came by marriage to the St John family (whose seat was at Battersea, London), and they owned it until the Second World War.
Formal gardens and a canal were created as part of changes made to the medieval house in the 17th century; Sir John St John also laid out a series of formal avenues. However, many of the formal elements of the park had been removed by 1766. Surviving features from the 18th century include a semi-underground listed ice house and a walled garden, with a bronze sundial at its centre. Large parts of the park were sold off in the 1920s and 1930s.
From 1942 the park was used as a military hospital by the American Forces, and then between about 1943 and about March 1946 it was a Prisoner of War hospital for German soldiers as POW camp No.160. In 1943, Councillor and Alderman Francis Akers bought the estate and the dilapidated house at auction and sold the whole to the local authority, the Corporation of Swindon, for £4,500.[citation needed]
Since 1955, the park has been open to the public all year round. The park was designated Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1987, as an example of a mid-18th century park having archaeological evidence of its 17th-century formal layout. The walls of the walled garden are Grade II listed as is the sundial within it.
In 2005, Swindon Borough Council received £3m from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards a restoration project which included reinstating a two-acre lake. The park hosted Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2009.
In 2017, the park was transferred from Lydiard Tregoze parish to the newly created West Swindon parish.