The weather appeared to be set fair for the day and with neither of us committed to anything today, we decided we’d put the National Trust cards to good use and visit Lacock Abbey.
We rather liked the sound of this outdoor exhibition, thinking (hoping) it might be rather similar in tone to the marvellous Fresh Air shows we love to visit in Quenington, near Cirencester. Anyway, a morning out in the fresh air sounded good after a few days indoors.
Whilst my hero sorted out the parking, I did a quick spell check on the information board. Oh, National Trust, how could you describe Lacock as a “traditional medieval village layed out in a square” ?
Moving right along…
A surprisingly large number of people were around considering the house was closed today and January wouldn’t normally be the choice month to visit a garden. The exhibition appears to have attracted interest and though we’d have liked to have had the place to ourselves, we soon shook off the crowd!
The twelve exhibits were spread around the fairly large gardens, all easily accessible from a gravel path which was showing signs of fairly heavy wear in places. The National Trust do seem to have hit the spot with this exhibition, for sure.
We thought it was the larger, more striking exhibits which worked best. Those which caught our eye from a distance and invited a closer look.
Some smaller, more dangly things had mirrored surfaces which glinted in the light as they twirled in the breeze.
But other, smaller, more traditional painted glass works didn’t seem to work quite so well in this setting, we thought, especially since there were other, more successful dangly things in trees.
The magpie in me was immediately drawn to these colourful pieces, especially when I realised what happened when they turned around slightly.
I rather liked these panels, too and could see why they’d been chosen for some of the exhibition’s publicity shots. I was pleased to see something a little different and more imaginative, too.
But my favourites were the two lotus flowers, standing on either side of the front steps
Each about a metre in diameter, the glorious blue of the surface lifted the spirit on a winter day. Had they fitted in my bag, I’d have been very tempted…
Though the exhibition was the main attraction and clearly, what had taken us to Lacock in the first place, other small features caught our eye, including this little quiz in the botanic garden.
And though we passed a couple of cats mooching about by the pathway, neither was quite so placid as this one.
We had enjoyed wandering around the Abbey, admired the beautiful vaulted ceilings and learned something new in the bakery.
I think we earned our lunch at the Red Lion, then. Very good it was too!
