Post #1086645

A family outing, to Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. (Our daughter has developed a fascination with country houses, which we are delighted to nourish.) Dogs are not allowed in the house, so my Whippet Castorp and I stayed outside whilst the family toured the inside. The buildings are a stylistic hodge podge: a 16th century family seat built on top of an earlier Augustinian nunnery, with extra layers from the following centuries. Yet the house exudes unity and simplicity, a quiet unintimidating grandeur. Sitting by its walls with my dog, I felt peace. Buildings can do that. The house belonged to the Talbot family, and it was here that Henry Fox Talbot developed the photographic paper negative process in the early 1800s. Talbot's book The Pencil of Nature contains several photographs of the place. Being in the shade of the objects of these first-ever photographs added another dimension to this somewhat spiritual experience. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tower_of_Lacock_Abbey_MET_DP147248.jpg #AGoodDay #HenryFoxTalbot #LacockAbbey