Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Eat and drink · Lacock
The Stables Café, Lacock
The National Trust's café on Lacock High Street, outside the abbey gates, serving light lunches, snacks, hot drinks and cakes without an abbey ticket.
Car-free · Family-friendly
The easy coffee and lunch stop in Lacock village, run by the National Trust and open to anyone, ticket or not. Arrive by bus and a regular hot drink is free.
- Good: No abbey ticket needed
- Good: Free hot drink with a bus ticket
- Good: Toilets beside the café
- Good: Open weekdays and weekends
- Worth knowing: Hours vary by season: check the Trust's calendar
- Worth knowing: Car park £5 for non-members
About
The Stables Café is the National Trust's café on the High Street in Lacock, just outside the entrance to Lacock Abbey. Because it is in the village rather than the abbey grounds, you need no ticket to use it. It sells light lunches, snacks, hot drinks and cakes, and it opens on weekdays and at weekends.
The Trust publishes its hours day by day: when we checked its calendar on 27 October 2026, the café opened from 10am to 5pm until 31 October, then from 10am to 4pm every day through November and December, closed on Tuesday 17 November, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Inside the abbey grounds there is a second Trust tea-room, in the courtyard, which needs an abbey ticket and closes at 4pm.
Come by bus and the Trust, with Good Journey, gives you a free regular hot drink here when you show your ticket; the Faresaver X34 runs between Chippenham and Frome. Drivers use the Hither Way car park, £5 a day for non-members and free for members, since there is no parking on the village streets. There are toilets beside the café and a RADAR accessible toilet in the village.
Opening hours and season
| Monday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
| Sunday | 10:00 to 16:00 |
10am to 5pm to 31 October 2026, then 10am to 4pm daily in November and December 2026 (closed 17 November and 25 and 26 December). 2027 hours not yet published.
Facilities
- ToiletsBeside the café; a RADAR accessible toilet in the village
- Hither Way car park£5 a day for non-members, free for members; Blue Badge bays and EV charging
The details
- Food
- Café food
- Serving
- Lunch
- Booking a table
- Walk-ins only
- Features
- Café
- Parking
- Hither Way car park, under 400m from abbey reception: £5 a day for non-members (machine or JustPark), free for National Trust members; Blue Badge bays, EV charging.
- Without a car
- The Faresaver X34 between Chippenham and Frome stops in Lacock; Melksham station is about 3.5 miles by road and Chippenham about 4.5.
Photos
Tables outside the café Photo: Peter, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
Location
Places to stay nearby
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The Red Lion, Lacock
Inn · Lacock
A Wadworth pub in a Georgian building on Lacock's High Street, with five double rooms upstairs and dogs welcome in the bar and the bedrooms.
Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Sign of the Angel, Lacock
Restaurants · Lacock
A fifteenth-century coaching inn on Church Street, Lacock, with a two AA Rosette restaurant, log burners, a garden by the stream and five bedrooms; brunch, lunch and dinner.
Verified Nov 2026
-
The Rectory Lacock
B&B · Lacock
An adults-only bed and breakfast in Lacock's Victorian rectory, in six acres a two-minute walk from the village, with two self-catering cottages for families in the old stables.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
Nearby walks, places and things to do
- Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum and Village
- The Red Lion, Lacock 0.2 km away
- Sign of the Angel, Lacock 0.2 km away
- The George Inn 0.2 km away
Sights nearby
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Tithe barn, Lacock
Sight · Historic building · Lacock
Lacock Abbey's fourteenth-century barn on East Street: eight bays of raised cruck trusses on stone blocks, a beaten earth floor and carpenters' protective marks. Grade I, owned by the National Trust, with the village lock-up at its north end.
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Lock-up, Lacock
Sight · Historic building · Lacock
Lacock's village lock-up on East Street: a late eighteenth-century stone cell with a domed roof and ball finial, no windows and a studded door, where drunks and offenders were held overnight. Joined to the tithe barn. Grade II.
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St Cyriac's Church, Lacock
Sight · Church · Lacock
Lacock's Grade I parish church, mostly fifteenth century, with a spire rebuilt in 1604, a vaulted chapel of about 1430 holding William Sharington's Renaissance tomb, and links to Fox Talbot. Open daily in daylight hours.
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Packhorse bridge, Lacock
Sight · Bridge · Lacock
A small humpbacked eighteenth-century bridge of two arches over the Bide Brook below St Cyriac's Church in Lacock, by the lane called Nethercote Hill, marked on the tithe map as Dummer's Bridge. Grade II; free on a footpath.