Lydiard Park — Attraction in West Swindon

Loved our first visit here and we will definitely return to spend more time wandering around especially visiting the House. We stopped off on our way back up the M4 heading to Surrey on Monday the 11th of November Remembrance Day It was a pure chance visit and as we walked into the walled garden to have a look around we were greeted very warmly by a Couple of Ladies who handed us the order of service it was then that we realised that they were holding a Remembrance day Service The Garden lawn border area had been completely taken over by memorial crosses from the British Legion as can be seen from the photos The Top area had memorial crosses with the years and photos of the dead attached We stayed for the service and it was a very humbling experience when sharing it with all the immaculately behaved young school children especially when they were reciting the poem about the reason why a mother was wearing a poppy. The respect that the children showed during the silence and the playing of the last post was truly humbling and for us a joy to be invited to take part in. Having attended many remembrance day parades and services throughout the years this one will never be surpassed especially when we didn't have a clue that it was happening.. Our heartfelt thanks for the invite and allowing us to pay our respect for all the war dead go to the Ministers and the Priest plus the School Children. A memory created by chance and never to be forgotten.. In addition to what we experienced we also had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman who was paying his respects to the fallen and to his Grandfather who was killed at the Somme whilst serving his Country in the Kings Own...

Really lovely place to go for a picnic, and a chill out with the kids, or to get some quiet time for yourself. There is a big expanse of grass to relax on and only a short walk is a toilet block, a cafe and a children's play area. There is also a large grassed area with built in barbecue's, and day I was there were in full use by families who had set up for the day with gazebos and games, so I would imagine you would need to get there early to snaffle a BBQ. The day we went the Cheese and Chilli Festival was on, our group have two autistic children and the Festival would have been a little too much for them, but we pitched our blankets and picnic outside, and relaxed listening to the fab music from the festival, whilst the kids had a blast in the park. It was lovely to see lots of dog on leads there too, and I noted that there were plenty of bins both for dog waste and normal waste around the park. It was clean, although the one point, and I think this was just due to the huge volume of numbers was the odour coming from the mens toilet was really not pleasant, As you walked up to the toilet block it was extremely strong, and in the ladies there was not much toilet roll left in any of the loos, and no soap in the dispensers. I think if there are events on, this area should be monitored. We had a lovely takeaway coffee from the cafe, which really was nice, but cannot comment on the food as we had our own picnic. We would definitely go back. I had never been there before, and had...

Nice cafe and lovely garden with only a small selection of food - but good quality and reasonably priced... but a long wait (15 minutes for 2 toasties) - and they weren't too busy. But very nice they were (sandwiches about £4 and toasties 50p extra. I've deducted 1 star re: the mandatory car park (pay and display) supposedly takes coins and card payment - BUT no instructions were displayed on how to pay by card... (Minimum is £2.10 for up to 2 hours.) Each of the 2 payment machines had a large sticker saying 'no cash held in machine overnight', but this has been stuck right over what I presume were the pay by card instructions! I didn't have any coins and I could not figure out how to pay by card, despite putting my card in, then pressing the different buttons and then tried the opposite - nothing was displayed on the screen. However, if you have coins then there are instructions displayed on how to pay by coins. Unfortunately I had no coins! Thankfully there's an option to use the Pay by Phone mobile app. Unfortunately, because of a lack of a 4g signal, it took me a few minutes to pay and then the app also charged an extra 40p for the privilege! So... When you go ... Take coins for the car park, enjoy the cafe and enjoy the grounds. But don't go without cash for...