Laycock Abbey
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Lacock Abbey in the village of
Lacock Lacock is a village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, England, about 3 miles (5 km) south of the town of Chippenham, and about outside the Cotswolds area. The village is owned almost in its entirety by the National Trust a ...
, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a
nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican C ...
of the
Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...
order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the suppression of Roman Catholic institutions in England in the 16th century; it was then sold to Sir William Sharington who converted the convent into a residence where he and his family lived. It was fortified and remained loyal to the crown during the English Civil War, but surrendered to the Parliamentary forces once Devizes had fallen in 1645. The house was built over the old cloisters and its main rooms are on the first floor. It is a stone house with stone slated roofs, twisted chimney stacks and mullioned windows. Throughout the life of the building, many architectural alterations, additions, and renovations have occurred so that the house is a mish-mash of different periods and styles. The Tudor stable courtyard to the north of the house has retained many of its original features including the brewhouse and bakehouse. The house later passed into the hands of the Talbot family, and during the 19th century was the residence of William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1835 he made what may be the earliest surviving photographic camera negative, an image of one of the windows. In 1944 artist Matilda Theresa Talbot gave the house and the surrounding village of Lacock to the National Trust. The abbey houses the Fox Talbot Museum, devoted to the pioneering work of William Talbot in the field of photography. The Trust markets the abbey and village together as "Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum & Village". The abbey is a Grade I listed building, having been so designated on 20 December 1960.


History

Lacock Abbey, dedicated to St Mary and St Bernard, was founded in 1229 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, widow of William Longespee, an illegitimate son of King Henry II.The ''Book of Lacock'' mentioned by heralds, passed into the Cottonian Library, where it was apparently lost in the fire of 1731 (
William Lisle Bowles William Lisle Bowles (24 September 17627 April 1850) was an English priest, poet and critic. Life and career Bowles was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of 14 he entered Winchester College, where ...
and John Gough Nichols, ''Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey: in the county of Wilts...'' London, 1835:v).
Ela laid the abbey's first stone in Snail's Meadow, near the village of Lacock on 16 April 1232. The first of the
Augustinian nuns Augustinian nuns are the most ancient and continuous segment of the Roman Catholic Augustinian religious order under the canons of contemporary historical method. The Augustinian nuns, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (died AD 430), are sever ...
were veiled in 1232, and Ela joined the community in 1228. Lacock Abbey prospered throughout the Middle Ages. The rich farmlands which it had received from Ela ensured it a sizeable income from wool.''Lacock''
(Wiltshire County Archives) accessed 28 September 2009
Following the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-16th century,
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
sold the abbey to Sir William Sharington for £783. He demolished the abbey church, using the stone to extend the building, and converted the abbey into a house, starting work in about 1539. So as not to be incommoded by villagers passing close to his residence, he is said to have sold the church bells and used the proceeds to erect a bridge over the River Ray for their convenience. Few other alterations were made to the monastic buildings themselves: the cloisters, for example, still stand below the living accommodation. About 1550, Sir William added an octagonal tower containing two small chambers, one above the other; the lower one was reached through the main rooms, and was for storing and viewing his treasures; the upper one, for banqueting, was only accessible by walking across the leads of the roof. In each chamber is a central octagonal stone table, carved with up-to-date Renaissance ornament. A mid-16th century stone conduit house stands over the spring from which water was conducted to the house. Further additions were made over the centuries, and the house now has various grand reception rooms. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Nicholas Cooper has pointed out, bedchambers were often named for individuals who customarily inhabited them when staying at a house. At Lacock, as elsewhere, they were named for individuals "whose recognition in this way advertised the family's affinities": the best chamber was "the duke's chamber", probably signifying
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1504Loades 2008 – 22 August 1553) was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Ja ...
, whom Sharington had served, while "Lady Thynne's chamber", identified it with the wife of
Sir John Thynne Sir John Thynne (c. 1515 – 21 May 1580) was the steward to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (c. 1506 – 1552), and a member of parliament. He was the builder of Longleat House, and his descendants became Marquesses of Bath. Early life ...
of Longleat, and "Mr Mildmay's chamber" was reserved for Sharington's son-in-law
Anthony Mildmay Sir Anthony Mildmay (died 1617) of Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire, served as a Member of Parliament for Wiltshire from 1584 to 1586 and as English ambassador in Paris in 1597. Origins Mildmay was the eldest son of Sir Walter Mildmay ( ...
of Apethorpe in Northamptonshire. During the English Civil War the house was garrisoned by Royalists. It was fortified by surrounding it with earthworks. The garrison surrendered (on agreed terms) to Parliamentarian forces under the command of Colonel Devereux, Governor of Malmesbury, within days of Oliver Cromwell's capture of the nearby town of Devizes in late September 1645. The house eventually passed to the Talbot family. It is most often associated with amateur scientist and inventor William Henry Fox Talbot, who in 1835 made what may be the earliest surviving photographic camera negative: an interior view of the oriel window in the south gallery of the abbey. Talbot's experiments eventually led to his invention of the more sensitive and practical
calotype Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low co ...
or "Talbotype" paper negative process for camera use, commercially introduced in 1841.


Architecture

When Sir William Sharington purchased the remains of the Augustinian nunnery in 1540, after the dissolution, he built a country house on the cloister court. He retained the cloisters and the medieval basement largely unaltered and built another storey above, so that the main rooms are on the first floor. The house is constructed of
ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
and rubble stone, the roofs are of stone slates and there are many twisted, sixteenth century chimney stacks. The house is a blend of different styles but lacks a cohesive plan; the four wings of the house are built above the cloister passages, but the house cannot be entered from the cloisters, and the cloisters cannot be seen from inside the house. The abbey underwent substantial alterations in the
Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style in the 1750s, under the ownership of
John Ivory Talbot John Ivory-Talbot ( – October 1772), of Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the British House of Commons, House of Commons between 1715 and 1741. Ivory was the eldest son of Sir John Ivory of New Ross, ...
. The
great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great ...
was redesigned during this period by Sanderson Miller. The basement consists of an arcade of cloisters on three sides, surrounding several vaulted rooms including the
sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...
,
chapter house A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole communi ...
, and warming house. These rooms were situated under the original
dormitory A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
. At the other end of the building, below what was formerly the abbess' chambers and the great hall, are two rooms and the main passage. On the north side, underneath the original refectory, is the undercroft. The west front has two flights of broad, balustraded steps leading up to the central door. Inside is a full-height hall with a part-hipped valley roof. On either side of this are octagonal turrets with cupolas and delicately pierced parapets. To the left of the hall is the former medieval kitchen with a balustraded parapet and buttresses. To the right is a range of parapetted rooms with a stepped buttress at the corner. The south front was plain, being the inside north wall of the original abbey church which was pulled down, but was rebuilt by William Talbot in 1828 to include bay windows. At this end of the building is Sharington's tower, an octagonal, three-storey tower, topped with a
belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa *Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco *Belvedere, Harare, Zim ...
, balustrade, and stair turret. The east front looks more medieval than the other sides but probably dates from about 1900, however the south end cross-wing appears to be mostly sixteenth century. To the north of the house stands the well-preserved sixteenth century stable courtyard. This has timbered gabled
dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
windows and a tall clock-tower at the west side of its north range. These buildings have mullion windows, and Tudor arched-doorways. Also beside the courtyard are the brew house, one of the oldest in Britain, and the bakehouse. The two lodges are seventeenth century and the carriage-houses are eighteenth century.


Today

Lacock Abbey is now the property of the National Trust, to which it was given in 1944 by Matilda Gilchrist-Clark, who had inherited the estate from her uncle Charles Henry Fox Talbot in 1916. The abbey is a Grade I listed building, having been so designated on 20 December 1960. The Fox Talbot Museum forms part of the ground floor. It celebrates the life of William Henry Fox Talbot, and his contributions to photography, and includes exhibits on the man himself, his mousetrap camera (so-called by his wife because he scattered the little wooden boxes round the house), the chemical processes involved in obtaining images and the early history of photography. Exhibitions showing the works of various photographers are sometimes held in a gallery on the first floor. The Fenton Collection, an historic photographic collection, was transferred to the museum from the British Film Institute in 2017.


In film and television

Some interior sequences in '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' and '' Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' were filmed at Lacock, including the cloister walk where Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised and when he comes out from Professor Lockhart's room after serving detention and hears the
basilisk In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk ( or ) is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the ''Naturalis Historia'' of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyrene is ...
. Scenes from '' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'' and '' Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald'' were also shot here. The abbey was one of two major locations for the 2008 film version of the historical novel ''
The Other Boleyn Girl ''The Other Boleyn Girl'' (2001) is a historical novel written by British author Philippa Gregory, loosely based on the life of 16th-century aristocrat Mary Boleyn (the sister of Anne Boleyn) of whom little is known. Inspired by Mary's life s ...
'' by
Philippa Gregory Philippa Gregory (born 9 January 1954) is an English historical novelist who has been publishing since 1987. The best known of her works is ''The Other Boleyn Girl'' (2001), which in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Roman ...
, directed by Justin Chadwick. Parts of the 2010 American horror film ''
The Wolfman In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely o ...
'', starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by Joe Johnston, were shot at the abbey. The interior of the abbey was used in the 1995 BBC/A&E production of
Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
's ''
Pride and Prejudice ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreci ...
'' and the BBC adaptation of
Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
's ''
Moll Flanders ''Moll Flanders'' is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722. It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age. By 1721, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, wit ...
'', and scenes for the BBC's historical TV serial '' Wolf Hall'', by Hilary Mantel, were filmed here in 2014.


Notes


References

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External links


Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum & Village information at the National TrustWikidata List of paintings at Lacock Abbey
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