Over the last few weeks we have looked at the National Trust village of Lacock, which was originally built to accommodate the workers at the abbey.

There was a settlement in Lacock before Saxon times but it grew in the 13th century after Ela, Countess of Salisbury and widow of William Longespee, founded the abbey in 1232.

The countess had the abbey built in memory of her husband William, a bastard son of Henry II.

It was part of the Augustinian order of nuns and remained as such until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.

It was then purchased from Henry VIII by Sir William Sharington, a Renaissance adventurer, who knocked down the abbey church and converted the upper part of the cloisters into living accommodation, giving the abbey much of its present character.

He rebuilt the courtyard in its present Tudor form and built the fine tower on the south east corner.

Sharington was knighted in 1574 by Elizabeth I. As he had no sons the abbey passed to his brother Henry, and through Henry’s daughter Olive to the Talbot family, descendants of whom still live there.

The greatest changes to the architecture of the abbey as a private house occurred during the 18th century when John Ivory Talbot commissioned Sanderson Miller to design the great hall.

In 1754 he removed the existing hall, which was in a state of ill-repair and erected a fine Neo-Gothic facade.