Lacock Abbey

Really beautiful though a little overpriced. Would have liked more info about each room to be posted nearby while walking through. Some rooms were empty leaving you to speculate what it was used for.

Lacock (the village) and the abbey will make you feel like you stepped back in time! Definitely a nice place to walk around and enjoy the preserved history of this town. The abby was alot bigger than expected and pretty well preserved. The countryside around it is breathtaking as well. The abby was a nunnary back in the 1200s and they have a book of the prayers of the nuns preserved in room. The abby gives you an idea of how people lived back in the day as you walk through all the rooms. The staff was very knowledgeable and super friendly. Its located a short walk from the village where you will find alot of homemade products from the small mom and pop shops.

Staying near Bath, Lacock Abbey is just 30 minutes away. We spent one day in Bath and was looking to find other things to do. We ended up in Lacock from a suggestion from the B&B owner.
Lacock is a small town that you can walk around quickly. It’s a bit fake feeling and reminds me of an American Disney World style place. The Abbey is the most authentic part of the whole thing. I know… the place is authentic, but it doesn’t feel that way. Maybe because of the huge number of tourists that come here, it feels a bit manufactured.
The Abbey: You park (pay & Display) and walk to the abbey. It takes less than 5 minutes to walk to the abbey from the car park and there is not street parking, so go to the car park. The Abbey has a nice entrance with a museum and gift shop. We didn’t really know what we were purchasing, but we got tickets to the Abbey and the rooms in the house. In retrospect, this was a mistake. We should have only purchased tickets for the abbey grounds.
The Abbey grounds are pretty. The cloisters and other Abbey rooms are nice (empty but nice). The Abbey cloisters and open courtyard is gorgeous. We watched a group of obnoxious tourists (English 20-​something girls) move the ropes and wander through the courtyard. I was disappointed that the person working there never said anything there. The individual rooms were nice but there wasn’t much in there. There wasn’t a guide, audio guide, or placards to tell you much about the rooms. The signage and information (or lack of it) was very disappointing.
Two of the Harry Potter movies were filmed at this Abbey. Several of the teacher office’s were rooms in the Abbey and the cloister courtyard was used for scenes with a big fountain. I’m not a Harry Potter fan so it was nice to see these but they didn’t wow me. There was a nice board with photos showing some of the scenes shot in the Abbey. It looks like a good bit of time was spent filming here.
We left the abbey and went into the house. What a mistake. The house was hot and boring. The rooms were preserved from the early 1900’s. Boring! We ran through there and got out as soon as we could. Don’t waste your time looking at artifacts from 100 years ago in an Abbey that has been standing for centuries.
We felt like it was expensive for what we saw and the lack of information. The Fox Talbot museum in the visitor center was much better, but we wanted more explanation on the cloisters. Oh well, it was pretty.

Very nice to visit for a morning or afternoon with the kids they love walking around there but a little pricey unless you have a NT membership. The pubs there have some lovely pub food for everyone.

Very nice to visit for a morning or afternoon albeit a little pricey unless you have a NT membership. After visiting the Abbey take a walk around Lacock village there are some lovely shops with a wide range of gifts and jewelry available.

Very interesting small museum packed with great facts and artefacts about William Henry Fox Talbot. When visiting Lacock, which is a beautiful village, take the time to stop in at the museum and browse around. You are sure to find out lots of information of which you were previously unaware.

I live quite close to Lacock and often pop down for a wander around. The Abbey is well worth a visit and even more so if you have a NT card. The car park is free and it is a short walk from there into the village. It always gives me the feeling that I have stepped back in time. Wander around the streets and your even aloud to wade through the ford! We have gone when the scarecrow trail is on and that makes an interesting afternoon. Stop for ice cream and have lunch at many of the fantastic pubs in the area.

Time constraints meant I didn’t have time to do the Abbey rooms. Maybe another time. Anyway, to be honest it’s the cloisters I’d heard of, as they were used extensively in the first couple of Harry Potter films.
The Abbey has actually not been an abbey for many years: it’s now a stately home. It was founded as a nunnery in 1232, and when bought by Sir William Sharington in 1539 he preserved much of the original buildings.
The cloisters are walks on three sides of a central grassed square. Very pretty! Several rooms are also accessible off them, including a parlour (originally the only place nuns in a silent order were allowed to talk, from the French Parlez), which strangely contains what looked to me like stone coffins. There’s also a ‘warming room’ with cauldron and trough and some mysterious dark rooms off that.
If you look carefully in the cloisters and in the Sacristy some medieval painting can still be seen, though it’s not especially stunning. The rooms are all pretty much empty shells, but they have a wonderful atmosphere, have great potential for pictures, and there are some interesting notices around. You can learn about the woman who founded the Abbey, the children evacuated there during the war, and more.
Entry is available as part of a package with the Fox Talbot Museum and Abbey Grounds (and the Abbey rooms if you have the extra time and money). I whistled round it all in an hour. 40 minutes or so was probably near enough for the Cloisters, but I could have done with more time for the lovely grounds and the museum.
Though the Cloisters are advertised as accessible to wheelchairs, I did think some of the floors were pretty uneven and some rooms could only be entered via steps. They might be a problem for some chair users, and a trip hazard for those less steady on their feet.