Lacock Abbey & Village

I have walked in the footsteps of Harry, Ron and Hermione!! And all of the other famous Harry Potter characters who have ever walked along the arched, cloister-like hallways of Hogwarts because, Lacock Abbey is where they filmed parts of the Harry Potter films! 

How exciting is that? 

The abbey is now looked after by the National Trust and sits in Lacock village which itself is a treasure to visit as it almost appears frozen in time with small medieval streets and beautiful timber framed houses - there are no big street lights or telegraph poles or very much of what could be considered 'modern', other than the cars that are parked on the roads and tourists wandering around with iPhones. People do live there and many sell little trinkets in baskets outside their doors which is fascinating (lots of Harry Potter themed things) and apparently many TV shows or films which require 18th or 19th century town scenes is filmed here - think Downton Abbey, Cranford, Pride and Prejudice - as well as Harry Potter.  

The abbey started out in the 1200s as a nunnery, then was converted into a Tudor home. The cloister isn't the original one but a second one built to replace the first in the 1400s. After the dissolution of the monasteries, Sir William Sharington bought the building and turned it into his country house, keeping much of the original architecture and adding other Italian-inspired Renaissance architecture around it. Gothick features such as a Great Hall and entrance arch were then added by John Ivory Talbot in the 1700s when he inherited the site and it's remained pretty much the same, save for a remodel of one section and a big window, since then, which is why it's a favourite for film scouts. 

More importantly, for us with three small children under 5 on holiday, the wonderful courtyard had big toilets, a lovely cafe to sit and recover from travels and lots of wide open space to run off energy. As always, we had a whistlestop tour of the inside which, for once, didn't have quite so many breakable and really precious items within the reach of small grasping hands, but for us the real gem here was the amazing woodland and parkland around the abbey. 

I imagine cloisters are at their best when it's raining. The idea of being able to walk and stretch your legs whilst watching the rain plop down in the middle really appeals to me. That, and when it's sunny so that there are different shadows cast on the floor as the sun moves around. Sadly we had neither of those weathers in this cloister!

Around the grounds there was a gazebo for creativity with paper and crayons and charcoal you could use, a mud kitchen, a badminton net, a dress up story-telling tent with lots of costumes to try on, little throwing competitions and so much more. We spent hours here playing and laughing before wandering off to find our picnic lunch, eaten in a nearby playing field in the village which was having a cricket match - and there was a really good playground for the boys. We ate delicious ice cream and walked around the village marvelling at the quaintness of it (although I didn't take any photos it would seem), popping in to some of the little tiny shops - a deli shop, art shops selling box frames filled with delicate painted egg shells, a chocolate shop, a crafty gift shop and an arty shop with handmade gifts and local spun and dyed yarn. There were coachloads of people being shipped in to wander round and being given advice by their guides on which pub served fastest or had the most space and where to find the best souvenirs. 

By the end of the day, the boys were so tired they were falling asleep upright bless them, it was a brilliant place to visit!