Stables café and Courtyard tea-room

Eating and drinking in Lacock

Tuck in to delicious meals and snacks, often handmade using local ingredients. What's more, every cup of tea or tasty treat you buy helps us continue looking after special places for everyone to enjoy.

Stables café 

After a hard day exploring the village and abbey, we invite you to take a moment to relax in the historic Stables cafe on Lacock's High Street. We have a range of premium dairy ice cream flavours from Marshfield Farm made with their own super-fresh milk and all-natural ingredients. Our favourite flavours include Salted Caramel, Honey And Stem Ginger, Chocoholic Heaven and Funky Banana!

Even dogs can enjoy a cool treat this year with the addition of Scoops Ice cream. Scoop’s doggy Ice Cream includes: Glucosamine – for joint care, Hemp oil rich in Omega 3 – for a glossy coat, Vitamin C – for the immune system and Curcumin – a natural anti-inflammatory. 

Courtyard tea-room

Ambitious Tudor courtier, William Sharington, purchased the abbey in 1540 after it closed as a nunnery. Sharington converted it into his family home, keeping much of the original building and adding some of the earliest Renaissance-inspired architecture in Britain, including his iconic octagonal tower. 

He added the courtyard (or Stable Court), reportedly using stone from the demolished abbey church. The original entrance was through a two storey medieval gatehouse, which was later replaced with the current entrance. 

The courtyard that you see today is much as Sharington’s Stable Court would have been, including his bakehouse, brewhouse and stables. Later owners made some alterations including William Henry Fox Talbot who added the low range of coach houses in around 1838.

In 2017 we introduced the Courtyard tea-room, with hot drinks, warming soups and daily specials, right in the heart of the abbey.  

We have achieved the Bronze 'Food for Life Served Here' Award!  We are the only national visitor attraction to achieve Served Here at such a wide scale.  It means that you can be reassured that we know exactly how our food has been grown, raised or reared. To achieve the Bronze Served Here award we worked closely with the Soil Association and we looked at everything from our menu and our suppliers, to the way that we prepare our food.  

We welcome your feedback on any aspect of our food and drink offer to help us to give you the best experience we can, please fill in a comments card in either of our outlets.