Devizes Market & Lacock Village

DEVIZES MARKET OND LACOCK VILLAGE

 

Devizes is a historic market town with a colourful Medieval past, wealth of history and architectural heritage with more than 500 listed buildings and a large Market Place in the heart of the town.

 

This can all be enjoyed as you discover the wide range of traditional independent shops or peruse the Thursday market, therefore whatever your reason for visiting Devizes, there is lots of to explore.

 

It is regularly in the top 10 of the country's favourite market towns and is home to three nationally-known visitor attractions.

 

Devizes has a great sense of community and throughout the year the town hosts an Art Festival, an International Street Festival, a Food Festival as well as many community events, many held in the newly refurbished Hillworth Park.

 

The town is named after the Latin ‘ad devizas’ meaning ‘at the boundaries’. The Norman castle was built by Osmund Bishop of Salisbury in 1080 at the boundary of three Saxon parishes.

 

Lacock, just four miles south of Chippenham, is probably the most beautifully preserved village in the Cotswolds

 

This is largely thanks to Ela, Countess of Salisbury, first and only female sheriff of Wiltshire.

 

It was Countess Ela who founded  Lacock Abbey in 1232 in memory of her husband, William Longswoth, stepbrother to Richard the Lionheart.

The Abbey, which was built for Augustinian nuns, grew alongside the village, each supporting the other, until its dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539.

 

The Abbey was sold to Sir William Sharington who re-built it as a family home, although the original cloisters, chapter houses, sacristy and kitchens still survive. After just a few years the estate passed to the Talbot family with who it remained for 370 years until it was given to the National Trust in 1944.

 

During the middle ages the village, which prospered from the thriving wool industry, grew into a bustling town.

 It had its own mill and weekly market as well as three farms, carpenters, wheelwrights, several pubs and a brewery.

 

Many original buildings still survive, including 'The Sign of the Angel, an inn in a 15th century weaver's house, a 14th century tithe barn complete with dirt floor, a medieval church and the 18th century packhorse bridge, built to solve the problem of transporting goods when the Byde Brook was in flood.

 

Today's village, though it has shrunk to just a few shops and pubs, supported by the tourist trade, remains prosperous. The absence of power cables, yellow lines and or TV aerials from its quadrangle of streets has made it very popular as a film location and Lacock has been used in countless productions including, the much acclaimed 1995 BBC version of 'Pride and Prejudice' and more recently the 'Harry Potter' films and The 'Other Boleyn Girl'