Model of St. Mary's Lydiard Tregoze, c1840

This wooden model was made by the travelling model-maker and surveyor, Thomas Lloyd in about 1840. It provides a fascinating glimpse of how the church was laid out before Victorian modifications were made to the building. The roofs are removable and inside you can see the configuration of the pews and the galleries for musicians and singers at the west end of building, reached by an outside staircase. The other striking difference from today is the imposing two-decker pulpit which looks directly towards the St. John family pew and dominates the nave.

Sadly most of the original churchyard setting of earth mounds and gravestones was lost in the 1970s, when the model was ‘tidied up’. The model is due to be conserved in 2021 as. part of the St. Mary's Church Conservation Project. Lloyd made similar models, but without the churchyard, of Purton, Clyffe Pypard and Wroughton churches in Wiltshire.