Monday 24 February 2014

Lacock abbey

After R's birthday we had two main gifts that needed road testing and so last Monday, despite (or possibly because of) the weather, we set out.

We had been given membership for the national trust - slightly cheeky as R is under five, so gets in free anyway, which meant that us parents got presents on her birthday! So we had an on line search for a place reasonably close, which we hadn't been to before, and which was open. I was surprised at how many properties were closed, given that it was a dreary half term, you'd have thought that most places would be open to take advantage of parents needing to get out the house to somewhere dry.


The wet weather meant we were able to test another present - her waterproof all-in-one. It did well, better than my coat! (Maybe it's time to get a new coat.)


It was spectacularly windy, wet and cold. Much more extreme and it would have been a blizzard. At least, that's how it felt after being indoors for a party filled weekend. The place was rather amazing though.

This amazing corridor was from the nunnery, around 800 years old. It's stunning, and seemed oddly familiar. We stumbled across a huge cauldron, and with it a sign explaining that the nunnery had been a location for Harry Potter filming - mystery solved.


It seemed even colder inside than out, and I couldn't help but think how hard life must have been for the nuns. They did choose that life though, so we got on with exploring.


This range was huge! And I loved the kitchen workbench/units, very simple but that's all you need. They were really worn too, you could imagine all the people they had fed over the years.


The abbey had been turned into a family home in the Victorian times, and so was somewhat more grand (though only slightly warmer!). In the South Gallery is the famous window where William Henry Fox Talbot took the first photographic negative. There was a bit of history in the museum which we visited after the house, but a certain munchkin wanted to walk too much for me to get more than a very brief history of photography.


We let her run (or walk rather) off some of her excess energy in the grand hall. It was plenty big enough for us all to get rid of that energy, especially as she's not yet mastered the art of walking by herself.


There was a beautiful number of snowdrops on the way to the abbey...


 ... and the crocuses were starting to add some colour too. Oh, how I've been craving some colour in nature at the moment, and these were a fantastic start to a spring we'll hopefully see soon!


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