Lydiard Tregoze - History

History

Mentioned in Doomsday as a manor belonging to Alfred of Marlborough Baron of Ewyas and a Tenant-in-Chief to King William I. Near Royal Wootton Bassett, the parish of Lydiard Tregoze was part of the Kingsbridge Hundred, while its village originally centred on the medieval parish church of St Mary and the nearby manor house, Lydiard House, which was the home of the St John family, Viscounts Bolingbroke. However, the original village of Lydiard Tregoze disappeared, giving way to the grounds of an important country house, although St Mary's church survives and contains important monuments.

Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, was the stepdaughter of Oliver St John of Lydiard Tregoze. His marriage to her mother, Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso produced six children to whom she remained close throughout her life, and this gave the St Johns considerable influence at Court in the early decades of the Tudor dynasty.

In 1615, Lucy St John, daughter of Sir John St John of Lydiard Tregoze, married Sir Allen Apsley, one of the founders of the New England Company. In 1644, Anne St John of Lydiard, the daughter of Sir John St John, 1st Baronet, married Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, a leading Royalist during the English Civil War. Anne St John was the grandmother of Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield.

Parish registers survive from 1666 and are kept in the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives.

In 1801, the total population of the parish was 578, in 1901 it was 618, and in 1971 549.

John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887) describes Lydiard Tregoze as: "Liddiard Tregooze, par. and vil., Wilts, 1 mile SE. of Liddiard Millicent, 5142 ac., pop. 660."

Lydiard Tregoze is one of two suggested locations for the 9th century Battle of Ellandun.