Lacock Abbey has a handsome garden, which was in glorious bloom during our June visit. There’s also a greenhouse, with a wonderful grapevine trained along the ceiling.
Inside the Abbey are memorabilia of its various owners, from the Sharingtons, who bought it from Henry VIII, to early photographer Henry Fox Talbot.
One former owner commissioned an Austrian artist to make the strange wooden carvings in the great hall to commemorate the Abbey’s history. Successive lumps of sugar have been kept on the wooden goat’s nose for a century or more.
The great hall’s ceiling features coats of arms of guests invited to a grand ball following one the Abbey’s later restorations, while it was still a private house.
