Lacock Abbey

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.