We were running late…my original itinerary included a relaxing visit to Lacock Village, a picturesque walking village about twenty minutes away from Bath. We got to Lacock at around 4:30pm. We realized we did not have enough time to go through the village if we wanted to get to our “hotel” before dinner. All we could do was visit Lacock Abbey. And we had only five more minutes before they would finish visiting hours of the state rooms inside the abbey. 
We ran and got there just in time. There were no audio guides this time, but lots of plaques with explanation of bits of history in each room. This Lacock abbey was built in the beginning of the 13th century and was an acting monastery until 16th century when Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of Monasteries. The king also sold it to Sir William Sharington who converted it into a house. It was passed from one owner to another owner for centuries until it ended up in the Talbot family. In 1944, Matilda Talbot who was not married and had no children gave the building and the grounds to the National Trust.
Walking through the abbey rooms was very interesting because we were able to ask the workers in each room to tell us more stories about the house.
In one room, we saw a ton of huge books. In fact, books were everywhere in the house. You wonder, how old some of them are.
In another room was this grand piano—we were allowed to sit down and play it, which the kids really liked.
We saw the Great Hall with all the statues to greet the visitors, passed through a number of bedrooms and even bathrooms that helped us imagine what it was like to live in the house a hundred years ago (the bathroom did not look too different from our current ancient bathroom-haha). We also saw the room which is believed to be a special room in which one of the owners used to spend a lot of time just counting and recounting his coins. I guess, some suspect that he was snipping tiny parts of the coins to get gold and sell it.
Downstairs, we were able to see where the nuns used to walk and worship.
Some rooms were spookier than others.
Not sure who used to be buried here and where they are now.
Of course, walking through the house might not sound like an interesting thing to do for kids, but for some reason ours actually enjoyed it this time…..Possibly because on the way to here, I told them that the cloisters of the abbey were the place where some of the parts of “Harry Potter” movies were filmed!
Do these look familiar?
According to Wikipedia, some parts of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were filmed here, including the cloister walk where Harry comes out from Professor Lockhart's room after serving detention and hears the basilisk. From http://www.findhogwarts.com I found out that Snape’s classroom and home of Professor Quirell were set at the abbey. Also, the Chapter House is where Harry first discovers the Mirror of Erised!
This was also the place where the sixth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The spooky nights of Hogwarts were also filmed here. Of course, the kids were excited!
Here is The Cauldron that we can see in Harry’s classroom. 
A couple of other movies you might have heard of that were filmed here are “The Other Boleyn Girl” and “Pride and Prejudice” (BBC production) from 1995.
Here is where I am imagining to be the other Boleyn Girl.
We left Lacock Abbey around 6 o’clock. The sun had absolutely no intention to set!
We headed towards Cotswolds Service Center-the place where we were staying, merely ten minutes away. Three reasons why we picked this place to stay were —it was twenty minutes away from Bath, it had three bedrooms, and it cost us $15 per night for ALL of us! It was nothing fancy, but clean and tidy for a good night sleep. This place is dedicated specifically for all Royal Armed Forces and visiting forces (that’s us), that is why it is so inexpensive.
We dropped off our bags and tried to find a place to eat. The closest place Neston Country Inn turned out to be the best pick in that area. The food was delicious! That is why I had a Portobello mushroom burger twice there (although it’s called “field mushroom” here)!
And that was the end of Day 1.
This is where you are supposed to read our blog post about Bath.
In summary: Day 2—Bath.
No comments:
Post a Comment