A new permanent display at Swindon's Lydiard House shows how the Victorians enjoyed their puddings writes Sarah Finch-Crisp, keeper of the house

The splendour of a Victorian dinner party will transform the dining room at Lydiard House with an authentic and lavish table display of moulded ices, replica fruits and sugar confectionery on the St John family's sparkling glass and silverware.

A formal dinner in the 19th Century was a serious business, beginning around 4pm and lasting anything up to four hours. When dessert, the most eye-catching of all the courses, was eventually served it was eaten by candlelight. At Lydiard the family would have entertained the local gentry and usually invited their closest neighbours, the parson and his wife.

The family benefited from having a large private ice house in their grounds which can still be seen in the park, albeit in a dilapidated state, to this day. Using ice from here the cook, Mrs Halliday, was able to make a delicious range of highly fashionable ice creams drawing on her ingredients from the Lydiard estate; cream and eggs from Park Farm on Hook Street and fruits gathered from the walled gardens and green house.

Kitchen servants went to huge efforts to prepare the dinner and a wide range of tempting dessert dishes like the tartlets, boudoir biscuits, iced sponges and sugared fancies which today's visitors will now see replicated.