Lydiard Park
country park in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, UK
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.
History
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.
The public source identifies “Lydiard Park” as country park in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, UK. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lydiard, Park and country.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lydiard Park”, the useful work is to connect “country park in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, UK” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6707713. Authority coordinates are 51.563, -1.862. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1086, 1198, 1259 and 1420.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Lydiard Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.