IN 1943, Britain was far from sure whether or not it would win the war.

So it is all the more impressive that the Swindon Corporation had the foresight then to buy a derelict stately home and its overgrown park for the benefit of future generations in the town.

For all they knew, Lydiard House would end up being somewhere nice for Wiltshire's Nazi high command to enjoy afternoon tea.

But their foresight paid off. Today the house and park is being used exactly as they intended.

Every day hundreds of Swindonians enjoy the 260-acre parkland for ball games, picnics and barbecues free a complete change from the privilege and exclusivity the house and park once embodied.

Although the grounds are undoubtedly beautiful they are currently only fulfilling a tiny fraction of their potential.

This is the view of Sarah Finch-Crisp, who holds the romantic-sounding title Keeper of Lydiard House and has helped put together the ambitious lottery bid to transform the site.

The five-year project is intended to restore the 260-acre grounds in Lydiard Millicent to their former Georgian splendour with extensive planting, landscaping and the reintroduction of a ten-acre lake.

But it all depends on the National Lottery coming up with £4.2 million towards the total cost of £5.5m the largest Lottery grant ever provided for Swindon further boosted by council funds and private sponsorship. She said: "It looks lovely at the moment and we can see lots of people enjoying it.

"But what you don't see is what we've lost it's difficult to tell you how extraordinarily beautiful this landscape was and how beautiful it could be if it's restored." The centre-piece of the project is the restoration of a 10-acre ornamental lake which once dominated the park.

It drained away in 1910 when the large castellated dam wall holding it up burst.

The other key plank of the Lydiard Park scheme is the restoration of the Home Circuit, a scenic walk which once ran around the lake's edge.

The walk is still open but it is difficult to imagine how it must have appeared to the well-heeled Georgians who once trod its paths.

Now overgrown with nettles and bushes, pot-holed and not remotely inviting, the Home Circuit would once have offered unrivalled vistas across the lake towards the house.

And it would have been lined with manicured and immaculately planted borders.

Mrs Finch-Crisp said: "This was a park which was also a garden one of the aims of this project is to bring horticulture back the park."

Nowhere would this horticulture be more important than in the 18th century walled-garden.

It is intended to restore this large enclosed space to its former role as an ornamental flower and fruit garden, possibly also with a space for performances and other activities.

Another restored feature would be the 18th century ice-house, a half-buried structure which resembles a World War II bomb shelter.

It is a fascinating historical vignette that in the 18th century only country houses with large lakes had the luxury of ice.

In the winter months, when lakes regularly froze over, tons of ice would be packed between layers of straw in the ice house keeping it cool for up to two years.

It enabled the landowners to have chilled dessert delicacies in the height of summer.

At the main entrance to the park, by the church, it is proposed to turn the stable and coach house into a tea room.

It is tended to help make all this possible by carrying out a year of archaeological works and other surveys to find exactly how Lydiard Park once looked.

Mrs Finch-Crisp said: "People at the moment think that you have to go outside Swindon to find places like this.

"Swindon has its own historic park and it is just waiting to be resurrected."

The National Lottery grant application will be formally submitted in October.

A decision is then expected within six months on whether it approves £390,000 to pay for initial feasibility studies.

Energy company Innogy, which is located near Lydiard Park, has already donated £70,000 towards the project.

And Swindon Council is to pay another £70,000.

Once the detailed studies have been completed a further lottery application will be submitted for £3.8 million to help pay for the real work to be carried out over a period of about four years.