Lacock Abbey is a country house in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England. There was an abbey of nuns on the site until 1539, and the house is a remodelling and extension of the abbey's cloister court. The Grade I listed building is owned by the National Trust and is notable as the site of Henry Fox Talbot's pioneering work in photography in the 1830s. The religious institution was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century; the property was then sold to Sir William Sharington who converted the convent into a residence where he and his family lived. It was fortified and remained loyal to the crown during the English Civil War, but surrendered to the Parliamentary forces once Devizes had fallen in 1645. The house was built over the old cloisters and its main rooms are on the first floor. It is a stone house with stone slated roofs, twisted chimney stacks and mullioned windows. Throughout the life of the building, many architectural alterations, additions, and renovations have occurred so that the house is a mish-mash of periods and styles. The Tudor stable courtyard to the north of the house has retained many of its original features including a brewhouse and bakehouse. The house later passed into the hands of the Talbot family, and in 1835 Henry Fox Talbot made what may be the earliest surviving photographic camera negative, an image of one of the windows. In 1944, Matilda Theresa Talbot gave the house and the surrounding village of Lacock to the National Trust. The abbey houses the Fox Talbot Museum.
History
Lacock Abbey, dedicated to St Mary and St Bernard, was founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, widow of William Longespee, an illegitimate son of Henry II. Ela laid the abbey's first stone in Snail's Meadow, near the village of Lacock on 16 April 1232. The first of the Augustinian nuns were veiled in 1232, and Ela joined the community in 1238.
Lacock Abbey prospered throughout the Middle Ages. The rich farmlands which it had received from Ela ensured it a sizeable income from wool. Following the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-16th century, Henry VIII sold the abbey to Sir William Sharington for £783. He demolished the abbey church, using the stone to extend the building, and converted the abbey into a house, starting work in about 1539. So as not to be disturbed by villagers passing close to his residence, he is said to have sold the church bells and used the proceeds to erect a bridge over the River Ray for their convenience. Few other alterations were made to the monastic buildings themselves: the cloisters, for example, still stand below the living accommodation. 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, was only accessible by walking across the leads of the roof. In each chamber 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.
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, whom Sharington had served, while "Lady Thynne's chamber", identified it with the wife of Sir John Thynne of Longleat, and "Mr Mildmay's chamber" was reserved for Sharington's son-in-law Anthony Mildmay of Apethorpe in Northamptonshire. Anne of Denmark came to Lacock in May 1613 during her progress to Bath. She was in pain from gout, and her physician Théodore de Mayerne examined her and made prescriptions. During the English Civil War the house was garrisoned by Royalists. It was fortified by surrounding it with earthworks. The garrison surrendered (on agreed terms) to Parliamentarian forces under the command of Colonel Devereux, Governor of Malmesbury, within days of Oliver Cromwell's capture of the nearby town of Devizes in late September 1645. The house eventually passed to the Talbot family. It is most often associated with amateur scientist and inventor William Henry Fox Talbot, who in 1835 made what may be the earliest surviving photographic camera negative: an interior view of the oriel window in the south gallery of the abbey. Talbot's experiments eventually led to his invention of the more sensitive and practical calotype or "Talbotype" paper negative process for camera use, commercially introduced in 1841.
Architecture
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