Lacock Abbey, Castle Combe, and Abingdon

Our first stop on this day was once again a filming location from Harry Potter: Lacock.

Several of the films were shot at the abbey and the village.

First, we explored the former abbey, which was sold to a private individual after the English Reformation and then converted into a residential house.

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.

Various scenes in corridors and classrooms were filmed in the Harry Potter movies here.

On the upper floor, we could see the reconstructed living spaces of the previous owners of the house.

In the Great Hall, a sugar cube rests on the nose of a goat statue.

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.

Additionally, there was an exhibition on photography among the display rooms, as one of the house's owners was William Fox Talbot.

He engaged with various fields of natural and social sciences but is particularly known for his achievements in photography.

According to the exhibition, he is the true father of photography because he invented the first negatives.

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”.

In the village, you can see the house of Harry Potter's parents.

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…

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…).

Indeed, we found “Castle Combe” even more delightful than Hawkshead, which we had also visited.

Alongside the 350 residents, there were especially many tourists wandering through the village and photographing the beautiful houses (Cotswold stone cottages) during our visit.

Since around 1600, no new houses have been built.

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.

That evening, however, we first took a stroll through Abingdon, which lies directly on the Thames.

Nothing remains of the former abbey, but parks and gardens are named after it.

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”).

The last “bun throwing” took place in 2022 for the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.