A Drive to Lacock

Yesterday we took a scenic drive over to the village of Lacock. Alongt the way we passed Avebury where there are some fabulous standing stones and a white horse cut into a chalk hillside. The white horse was cut in 1780 on Cherhill Down and we viewed it while driving on the curiously named Labour-in-Vain Hill. I was quite tempted to ask Heather and Graham to take a detour to the Avebury standing stones, but I've seen them before and already taken pictures of them.

The village of Lacock is a charming cluster of medieval stone houses, a tithing barn, several inns and tearooms, a church and a 12th-century abbey that is now a private residence. The abbey is owned by the National Trust as is the entire village. The properties were given to the National Trust by a descendant of Sir William Sharington who took private ownership of the abbey in the mid-1500s following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VII. The current residents are now tenants of the NT property. An old barn in the village has been converted into a museum devoted to William Henry Fox Talbot, former owner/resident of the abbey. Among many other achievements, Fox Talbot invented the photographic negative in the 1830s.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking through the village, visiting the abbey and the Fox Talbot museum. It is easy to see why Lacock is frequently used as filming location in television shows and movies.