Plans to turn meeting rooms in Lydiard House into a bridal suite for weddings have been halted by Swindon Borough Council 

Swindon Borough Council owns and operates the 18th century Palladian mansion of Lydiard House as a wedding and events venue, and put in an application for planning permission, to its own planning department, to convert three rooms used as meeting spaces into a bridal bedroom suite for happy couples.

However, the local authority has now withdrawn that application following concerns raised by heritage organisations.

The proposals also included a refurbishment of the Luxborough Suite where weddings are held, but the main plan was to convert three rooms on the first floor of the service wing of the house used for meetings and an adjacent store room into the bridal suite and a next-door gathering room.

The largest meeting room would become the bridal suite’s bedroom, the store room leading off it would be the bathroom and a smaller meeting room at the other end of the main room would become a dressing room for the residents.

(Image: Swindon Borough Council)

That would have involved changing some panelling and removing doors.

The Friends of Lydiard Park were invited to comment and it said: ”The applicant has proposed to apply timber mouldings to achieve the appearance of wall panelling in the first-floor rooms which would be out of keeping with the simple character of the upper floor which should be subservient to the more elaborate ground floor.

“Unknowingly the applicant seeks to invert the historic architectural hierarchy of the house. We believe this would undermine the legibility of the classical interiors, cause historical confusion and lead to a loss of significance to the heritage asset.”

It added: “A second concern is the proposed removal of historic panelled doors from their original locations. Lydiard House was remodelled on an earlier mansion so it is a characteristic of the house to have twin doors to accommodate various wall thicknesses from the earlier house and to avoid the need for recesses which would upset the symmetry of the rooms.”

Those concerns were echoed by The Georgia Group, a heritage organisation which is a statutory consultee on planning proposals involving important late 18th and early 19th-century buildings.

It referred to the application asking for permission for the removal of the doors described as ‘later duplicate’ doors.

It said: ” Photographs do not establish the doors are unoriginal. Further evidence about the date and significance of these doors will be needed and justification for their removal and storage should be provided.”

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