![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
A Tale of Two Villages
Two days ago I visited Lacock, about half an hour from here, hoping to waylay some Japanese tourists and ask them their impressions. I failed utterly, because I went in the morning, and they come in the afternoon - mostly. But I did talk to lots of shopkeepers, etc.
It was all for my Cotswolds project, of course; for, even though Lacock is really a little way outside the Cotswolds, it does tend to be included in Japanese language tourist guides, and sometimes even such august organisations as the National Trust appear to claim it:
Anyway, it's a famously pretty village, so here are some pics if you like that kind of thing:
Like Castle Combe, Lacock is frequently used in historical films and television programmes: it featured heavily in Pride and Prejudice and Cranford, and made appearances in both Harry Potter and Downton Abbey. Unlike Castle Combe, though, where media appearances are not made much of, Lacock very much sells itself on this aspect of its identity - along with its other claim to fame as the birthplace of photography. There's a Harry Potter-themed giftshop, for example:
And the NT shop sells several books aimed at location hunters:
I wonder why this difference in approach? Is it the presence of the National Trust itself? Or the fact that, although a small village, at 1,500 or so Lacock has a population almost five times larger than Castle Combe's?
Meanwhile in Bristol I've been having fun tracking down some of the 67 Wallace and Gromit statues scattered through the city for the 2018 summer "Gromit Unleashed" trail. Here are my two favourites so far: "The Howl" and "Gnome, Sweet Gnome".
It was all for my Cotswolds project, of course; for, even though Lacock is really a little way outside the Cotswolds, it does tend to be included in Japanese language tourist guides, and sometimes even such august organisations as the National Trust appear to claim it:
Anyway, it's a famously pretty village, so here are some pics if you like that kind of thing:
Like Castle Combe, Lacock is frequently used in historical films and television programmes: it featured heavily in Pride and Prejudice and Cranford, and made appearances in both Harry Potter and Downton Abbey. Unlike Castle Combe, though, where media appearances are not made much of, Lacock very much sells itself on this aspect of its identity - along with its other claim to fame as the birthplace of photography. There's a Harry Potter-themed giftshop, for example:
And the NT shop sells several books aimed at location hunters:
I wonder why this difference in approach? Is it the presence of the National Trust itself? Or the fact that, although a small village, at 1,500 or so Lacock has a population almost five times larger than Castle Combe's?
Meanwhile in Bristol I've been having fun tracking down some of the 67 Wallace and Gromit statues scattered through the city for the 2018 summer "Gromit Unleashed" trail. Here are my two favourites so far: "The Howl" and "Gnome, Sweet Gnome".
no subject
no subject