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Lacock, Wiltshire

Because of the lack of new development Lacock today looks much like it did 200 years ago when most of the 'latest' development took place. Its oldest house is King John’s Hunting Lodge, built in the year 1210, just shortly before the Abbey (1232). So most of the surviving houses in the village are 18th century or earlier in construction. Lacock Abbey, the 14th Century St Cyriac's Church and the 14th Century tithe barn, are Grade I listed. There are four Grade II* listed structures: The Sign Of The Angel (a late 15th Century house, now an inn); a village cross (late medieval, re-erected outside the school in the late 19th Century); a pair of bridges carrying the Bowden Hill road over the Avon (late medieval, 17th and 19th Century); and a 16th Century conduit house, part of the abbey's water supply, opposite Bowden Hill Church. The inhabitants of Lacock were poor tenants who paid their rent to the nuns from the Abbey by work and goods, e.g. corn, wool or hides. These were collected in the Tithe Barn. Next to the Tithe Barn is a small lock-up from the late 18th Century. The workhouse was built in 1833 to house the increasing number of poor and unemployed families in the village. By 1841 136 unemployed men from Lacock were being used in gangs building the G.W.R. line to the east of the village.

The village’s most famous appearances include in 'Downton Abbey', the BBC’s 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Cranford', and the films 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' and 'Wolfman'.

The Sign Of The Angel

The workhouse is now a pottery.

King John’s Hunting Lodge

The lock-up and tithe barn.

Downton Abbey Filming  in Lacock

These photographs were not taken by the website's photographer, but are here to aid identifying some of the locations within Lacock where Downton Abbey was filmed. The homes of the characters were not filmed in Wiltshire.

Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville with Margie Drewe played by Emma Lowndes

Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville, Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham,played by Elizabeth McGovern in the centre, with Laura Carmichael playing Lady Edith Crawley and her daughter, Marigold, played by Eva Karina Samms

Mrs Hughes, the housekeeper, played by Phyllis Logan, with Mr Carson, the butler. played by Jim Carter

Lord Merton, played by Douglas Reith, with Lady Mary Crawley, played by Michelle Dockery