History of Lacock
Encyclopedia
Lacock
Lacock
Lacock is a village in Wiltshire, England, 3 miles from the town of Chippenham. The village is owned almost in its entirety by the National Trust, and attracts many visitors by virtue of its unspoiled appearance.-History:...

 was first mentioned in the Domesday book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 in 1086 with a population of less than 200; with two small mills and a vineyard. The village's main attraction Lacock Abbey
Lacock Abbey
Lacock Abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order.- History :...

 was founded on the manorial lands by Ela, Countess of Salisbury
Ela, Countess of Salisbury
Ela of Salisbury, 3rd Countess of Salisbury was a wealthy English heiress and the suo jure Countess of Salisbury, having succeeded to the title in 1196 upon the death of her father, William FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Salisbury...

 and established in 1232; in the reign of King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

. Lacock was granted a market and developed a thriving wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 industry during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. Reybridge, and a pack horse ford, remained the only crossing points of the River Avon until the 17th century.

Middle Ages

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 in the mid-16th century, Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 sold it to Sir William Sharington
William Sharington
Sir William Sharington was an English courtier of the time of Henry VIII, master and embezzler of the Bristol Mint, member of parliament, conspirator, and High Sheriff of Wiltshire.-Early life:...

, who converted it into a house starting in 1539, demolishing the abbey church. Few other alterations were made to the monastic buildings themselves: the cloister
Cloister
A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...

s, for example, still stand below the living accommodation and can be seen today, along with the main architecture. 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, only accessible by a walk across the leads of the roof. In each 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.

16th and 17th centuries

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
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, KG 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 Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death...

, whom Sharington had served, while "Lady Thynne's chamber", identified it with the wife of Sir John Thynne
John Thynne
Sir John Thynne was the steward to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and a member of parliament. He was the builder of Longleat House and his descendants became Marquesses of Bath.-Early life:...

 of Longleat
Longleat
Longleat is an English stately home, currently the seat of the Marquesses of Bath, adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster in Wiltshire and Frome in Somerset. It is noted for its Elizabethan country house, maze, landscaped parkland and safari park. The house is set...

, and "Mr Mildmay's chamber" was reserved for Sharington's son-in-law Anthony Mildmay
Anthony Mildmay
Sir Anthony Mildmay was a country gentleman from Northamptonshire, England, who served as Member of Parliament for Wiltshire from 1584 to 1586 and as English ambassador in Paris in 1597.-Early life:...

 of Apethorpe
Apethorpe
Apethorpe is a village and civil parish in East Northamptonshire district of the shire county of Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 census records a population of 133....

 in Northamptonshire.

18th and 19th centuries

Most of the surviving houses in the village are 18th century or earlier in construction, and people still live there today. There is a 14th century tithe barn
Tithe barn
A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing the tithes - a tenth of the farm's produce which had to be given to the church....

, a medieval church, and an inn dating from the 15th century and an 18th century lock-up
Village lock-up
Village lock-ups are historic buildings that were used for the temporary detention of people in rural parts of England and Wales. They were often used for the confinement of drunks who were usually released the next day or to hold people being brought before the local magistrate. A typical village...

 and village school which is still used today.

Lacock Abbey was later passed on to the Talbot family who build a full upstairs extension and turned it into a early 19th century style manor, although still leaving the original cloisters and many of the abbey rooms intact.

20th and 21st centuries

In 1916 Charles Henry Fox Talbot bequeathed the Lacock estate to his niece, Matilda Gilchrist-Clark, who took the name of Talbot. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 many evacuees came to Lacock and lived in the estate till the latter stages of the war. The estate was then given to the National Trust in 1944 by Matilda Talbot – comprising 284 acres (1.1 km²), the Abbey, and the village.

In 1932, to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the foundation of the abbey a pageant was held on Saturday September 3rd, 1932 where all the townsfolk dressed up in medieval style clothes and held a medieval fayre some of the villagers even dressed up as real life historical characters such as Ela, countess of Salisbury, who originally set up the Abbey 900 years prior. Another pageant was held the year after in 1933, albeit on a lesser scale; if you visit Lacock Abbey there is video footage of the event in the library room.

Lacock has; past and present been admired by many; including the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 who was a regular visitor in his later years, mainly for his hobby in photography, there is a section about him in the Lacock museum.

In recent times, Lacock has appeared in many films for its historic and unspoilt appearance and the abbey in particular appeared in several of the Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

 films. It is also one of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

's most visited historic villages.

External links


The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK