The Abbey was founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury who was the wife of William Longspee, the illegitimate son of Henry II. William was one of the signatories to the Magna Carta and so Lacock Abbey had one of the original copies signed by King John. It is currently housed in the British Museum.
The Abbey, which was Augustinian, prospered in the middle ages, earning it’s living from the wool trade. It housed between 15 and 25 nuns, but there were a larger number of lay sisters. However, the Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII was part of his dissolution of the monasteries and in 1539 it was sold to Sir William Sharington, who transformed it into a family home. He preserved the medieval cloisters, sacristy, chapter house and many of the other medieval rooms, although the refectory and dormitory were converted to normal rooms. This is the sacristy…
Sharington added a 3 story tower in Italian Renaissance style and build a stable courtyard with a brewery and bakehouse.
In the 19th century Lacock Abbey was home to William Henry Fox Talbot. The photographers amogst you may know that in 1835 he created the first photographic negative. It was a view of an oriel window on the south side of the abbey (the large window on the right in this photo).
More recently Lacock is best known as the place where the cloister scenes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone & Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were filmed.
In these cloisters some of the original medieval wall paintings still survive. This one is of St Andrew & St Christopher.
There were also some medieval floor tiles.
As well as going round the Abbey I also had another wander round the village (you may recall that I posted some photos that Chris & took when we were there last December, but when nothing was open). This time the 13th century Tithe Barn was open…
Those are just a sample of the photos I took. If you want to see them all they are on Flickr: here.
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