After enjoying my National Trust membership in 2023, I decided I would rejoin the Trust for 2025.
I had never been to Lacock before. I think I always thought it was too far away for a visit, but the reality was that though it’s fifty miles away, due to its location it was only, according to Google Maps an hour away. So I thought I would go and visit, especially as it was now open for the summer season.
I nearly didn’t go there, as I travelled up the M5 I hit traffic around Gordano, so I came off the M5, and as I drove towards Bristol, I did think about just going to Tyntesfield again. However I had only visited a couple of weeks back, so I made the decision I would go to Dyrham Park which is close to Bath, which I had visited back in May 2023. As I drove towards Dyrham Park I saw that Waze was telling me, it wasn’t that much further to get to my first choice of Lacock. So took the decision to stick with plan A and go to Lacock.
There is a National Trust car park, which is free to members, otherwise is £5 for the day. It’s then a short walk to Lacock and Lacock Abbey.
Lacock
Country house with monastic roots, once home to William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the photographic negative
Current saving £9.20
One adult £20.00
Parking £5.00
Total saving £25.00
Cumulative saving £107.00
Membership cost £91.20
Net cumulative saving £15.80
I walked through the grounds to the house. You then walk around the house before entering the building and into the cloisters.
The first part of the house you see are the older parts of the Abbey, which when it was an Abbey would have been used by the nuns.
This part of the building was used to film certain scenes in the Harry Potter films, including the corridors and two of the rooms. There are a couple of houses in Lacock itself that were also used by the filmmakers.
After exploring the cloisters, you enter the rest of the house, exploring the kitchens, before heading up the stairs to the main rooms.
It was a beautiful house and also I loved how light it was. There was protective screens on the windows (like many National Trust properties) but these still let in a lot of natural light.
There was a real mix of rooms, I was surprised by the small size of the main bedrooms and then the vastness of the entrance hall.
After exploring the house, I took a short walk around the grounds before heading into the village of Lacock.
This year I have planned to visit fifty places.