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| Highlights |  | Events
See website for details of events. Garden open outside normal opening times for spring flowers under National Gardens Scheme |  | Guided tours
Tours of Abbey by appointment with the House Manager (tel. 01249 730227). Charge inc. NT members |
About this property
The picturesque village, with its many lime-washed, half-timbered stone houses, dates from the 13th century and has been seen in many TV and film productions, including Pride and Prejudice, Cranford Chronicles and Emma. The Abbey is at the heart of the village and was founded in 1232 and converted into a country house c.1540. The atmospheric monastic rooms include medieval cloisters, a sacristy and chapter house and have survived largely intact. They have featured in two Harry Potter films, plus the recent The Other Boleyn Girl. The handsome 16th-century stable courtyard houses a clockhouse, brewery and bakehouse. The pioneering photographic achievements of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77), who invented the negative/positive process, can be experienced in the Fox Talbot Museum. His descendants gave the Abbey and village to the Trust in 1944. A stroll through the Abbey's Victorian woodland grounds reveals a stunning display of flowers in spring and magnificent trees, while the Botanic Garden reflects the plant collections of Fox Talbot – for whom botany was a lifelong scientific interest.
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