Our first stop on this day was once again a filming location from Harry Potter: Lacock.
Lacock Abbey
Several of the films were shot at the abbey and the village.
Lacock Abbey First, we explored the former abbey, which was sold to a private individual after the English Reformation and then converted into a residential house.
Abbey Lacock The ground floor of the former convent, which featured a cloister, chapter house, and sacristy, was used as a storage area, and thus it was preserved with minimal changes.
Cloister Lacock Abbey Various scenes in corridors and classrooms were filmed in the Harry Potter movies here.
Chapter House Lacock Abbey - Location of the Mirror of Erised On the upper floor, we could see the reconstructed living spaces of the previous owners of the house.
Blue Salon Lacock Abbey
In the Great Hall, a sugar cube rests on the nose of a goat statue.
Great Hall Lacock Abbey
In 1919, an American student placed it there as a joke, and the homeowner apparently found it so amusing that she left it there. Since then, it has been renewed repeatedly.
Goat with sugar cube
Additionally, there was an exhibition on photography among the display rooms, as one of the house's owners was William Fox Talbot.
Lacock Abbey He engaged with various fields of natural and social sciences but is particularly known for his achievements in photography.
Photography Exhibition According to the exhibition, he is the true father of photography because he invented the first negatives.
Lacock We then took a stroll through Lacock, a charming little village that served as a filming location for numerous films and television productions - including “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey”.
Lacock Pub In the village, you can see the house of Harry Potter's parents. Lacock - House of the Potters
Also located here is the residence of Horace Slughorn - however, at the time we visited, it was unoccupied. Perhaps the owners were tired of the many tourists photographing their front yard…
Lacock - Slughorn's House We continued on to “Castle Combe”, which is advertised as “the prettiest village in England” (not the first time we have been to a village that boasts this…).
Castle Combe Indeed, we found “Castle Combe” even more delightful than Hawkshead, which we had also visited.
Castle Combe Alongside the 350 residents, there were especially many tourists wandering through the village and photographing the beautiful houses (Cotswold stone cottages) during our visit.
Castle Combe Since around 1600, no new houses have been built.
Church Castle Combe After our walk, we proceeded to Abingdon, where we settled at a parking spot a little outside the city: To visit Oxford, we wanted to spend two nights here.
Abingdon That evening, however, we first took a stroll through Abingdon, which lies directly on the Thames.
Thames in Abingdon Nothing remains of the former abbey, but parks and gardens are named after it.
Abbey Gardens Abingdon In the Abingdon County Hall, there is a peculiar 400-year-old custom: On special occasions, rolls are thrown from the roof of the building into the crowd by council members in robes (“bun throwing”).
Abingdon County Hall The last “bun throwing” took place in 2022 for the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Grey Squirrel in Abingdon