I don't know if you noticed, however there was no blog n the 24th June. OMG, we must have had a day off. So that means I only have to catch up from the 30th to today which is the 4th July, so just 5 days. As today is also a day off ( kinda), I could give it my best shot.

I also forgot something when writing about our day at Pembridge. I remembered the two trucks meeting head on in the village, however I managed to block this memory. Cheryl is still trying to. You know how I'm proud of the way I pull over in country lanes for oncoming traffic? Well, when I'm driving a Citroen C4, I should rethink just how generous I can be. When driving across country from Eardisley to Pembridge, I pulled up onto a grass verge and the front left wheel dropped into a hole. We bottomed and were hanging forward in our seatbelts, when I reacted by turning the steering wheel hard right and accelerated. Wheels spun, wheels gripped and we leapt back up onto the road just as the oncoming car passed us by.

But that was days ago. Ches is well and truly almost over it.

Friday morning, we left Kington bright and early. 9:30 is Ches's idea of early. It was to be a 4+ hour drive and we had decided to stop at Lacock, around halfway. We visited the village with Drew and Keith 5 years or so ago. Loved it. Its where they filmed the village scenes for "Downton Abbey". One of our all-time favourite villages. Right beside the village is Lacock Abbey. It's N.T. and last time we were there, it was closed.

Lacock Village is believed to have begun life as a Saxon settlement - its name originates from the word 'lacuc', which means 'little stream' (a reference to Bide Brook which runs through the village).

I've edited Wiki because I couldn't find the time to summarise it myself. It was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 with a population of less than 200, two small mills and a vineyard. The village's main attraction, Lacock Abbey, was founded on the manorial lands by Ela, Countess of Salisbury and established in 1232; in the reign of Henry III. Lacock was granted a market and developed a thriving wool industry during the Middle Ages. Reybridge, and a packhorse ford, remained the only crossing points of the River Avon until the 17th century.

During the Middle Ages, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, Henry VIII sold the abbey to Sir William Sharington, who converted it into a house starting in 1539, demolishing the abbey church. Few other alterations were made to the monastic buildings themselves: the cloisters, for example, still stand below the living accommodation and can be seen today. 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, is only accessible by a walk across the leads of the roof. In each 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.[4] 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.

Most of the surviving houses in the village are 18th-century or earlier in construction, and people still live there today. There is a 14th-century tithe barn, a medieval church, an inn dating from the 15th century, an 18th-century lock-up and a village school which is still used today.

Lacock Abbey was later passed on to the Talbot family who built a full upstairs extension and turned it into an early-19th-century-style manor, while leaving the original cloisters and many of the abbey rooms intact. The original abbey is on the ground floor and it's the upstairs that was remodelled.

Our favourite part of the house was the entire wing that he remodelled as a family lounge or day room. He built three massive bay windows and two fireplaces. In front of one fireplace was n embroidered screen depicting a sulphur crested white cockatoo. Appropriately, it is sitting on an overturned basket of flowers, which it most probably was destroying. I wonder if the Talbots had any idea what it was about?

Another highlight were the sets of chairs painted to liik like stone. Unlike my fetish for "marbling", these look as though they are made from stone with pastel decoration.

Our last observation when leaving the village was that the pub had a massive eucalyptus tree, struggling to stay alive. Lots of dead foliage but clumps of new shoots all over the trunk and three massive branches. Perhaps it was originally part of the Talbot's Botanic Gardens or a seed was dropped by a bird beside the pub/hotels beer garden.

In 1916 the late Henry Fox Talbot's son Charles bequeathed the Lacock estate to his niece, Matilda Gilchrist-Clark, who took the name of Talbot. During World War II many evacuees came to Lacock and lived on the estate till the latter stages of the war. The estate - comprising 284 acres (1.15 km2), the Abbey and the village - was given to the National Trust in 1944 by Matilda Talbot.

In 1932, to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the abbey, a pageant was held on Saturday 3 September when villagers dressed up in medieval style clothes and held a medieval fayre.

Lacock has been admired by many, including the playwright George Bernard Shaw who was a regular visitor in his later years, mainly for his hobby of photography.

In recent times, Lacock has appeared in several films for its historic and unspoilt appearance, and the abbey in particular appeared in several of the Harry Potter films.

We had originally planned on visiting the two chalk white horses on our way back to Southampton. Perhaps it was our bitter experience at Littleton that set the scene. All I could envisage was being diverted from our main route to remote hillsides in bleak weather and not seeing much. As it is, one is best seen from the air, and that wasn't going to happen, so I abandoned the plan.

Sheila also did us a favour and announced that she could take us on an alternate route that would save us 20 minutes. As it was north of Salisbury, and we have previously experienced the nightmare that is the roundabouts guarding Salisbury from invasion, we took her advice. What she did do was take us past Stone Henge. Even this late in the day, the carpark was packed. Perhaps the approaching summer solstice was the attraction. It's the only time of the year that "Druids" can exercise their religious right to move among the stones. Everyone else has to stay on the walkway that surrounds it.

We arrived back at Drew and Keiths at 5:30 and immediately began repacking for tomorrows trip to the Isle of Wight.