Summary

A Grade I listed country house in Lacock village, Wiltshire, built over the cloister court of an Augustinian nunnery founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury; dissolved in 1539 and sold to Sir William Sharington who converted the abbey into a residence, retaining the medieval cloisters; home of the Talbot family from the 17th century, including William Henry Fox Talbot who made one of the earliest surviving photographic negatives here in 1835; given to the National Trust in 1944 by Matilda Theresa Talbot; used as a filming location for Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1995), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Chamber of Secrets (2002), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Wolf Hall (BBC, 2015), and other productions.

About this location

Lacock Abbey stands in the village of Lacock in Wiltshire, approximately three miles south of Chippenham. The Augustinian nunnery was founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, widow of William Longespee (an illegitimate son of Henry II); Ela laid the first stone in April 1232 and entered the community herself in 1238. The nunnery prospered through the Middle Ages on income from wool from its farmlands.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-16th century, Henry VIII sold the abbey to Sir William Sharington for £783 in 1539. Sharington demolished the abbey church, used the stone to extend the building, and converted the monastic complex into a country house. He retained the medieval cloisters intact below the new living accommodation and built the principal rooms on the first floor above them. Around 1550 he added an octagonal tower with two small chambers, the lower for storing treasures (with an octagonal stone table of Renaissance ornament) and the upper for banqueting. The house later passed to the Talbot family. John Ivory Talbot undertook substantial Gothic Revival alterations in the 1750s, including redesigning the great hall with Sanderson Miller.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), the Victorian scientist and inventor, lived at Lacock and in 1835 made what may be the earliest surviving photographic camera negative: an interior view of one of the abbey’s south gallery oriel windows. His experiments eventually led to the calotype process, introduced commercially in 1841. The Fox Talbot Museum on the ground floor of the house commemorates his life and work. In 1944, Matilda Theresa Talbot gave the house and the surrounding historic village of Lacock to the National Trust.

The medieval cloisters — with their Gothic arched walkways — and the varied architectural character of the abbey’s rooms make it an exceptionally versatile filming location for period drama set across several centuries.

Productions filmed at Lacock Abbey include: Pride and Prejudice (BBC/A&E, 1995, written by Andrew Davies, starring Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, adapted from Jane Austen’s novel — the abbey’s interior served as Netherfield Park); Moll Flanders (BBC, 1996, adapted from Daniel Defoe’s novel); Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Warner Bros., 2001, directed by Chris Columbus, starring Daniel Radcliffe — the cloister walk was used for Hogwarts scenes including Harry discovering the Mirror of Erised); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner Bros., 2002, directed by Chris Columbus — the abbey returned for further Hogwarts sequences); The Other Boleyn Girl (BBC Films/Focus Features, 2008, directed by Justin Chadwick, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson); Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Warner Bros., 2009); Wolf Hall (BBC Two, 2015, written by Peter Straughan from Hilary Mantel’s novels, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII); Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros., 2018).