The historic Lacock Abbey will be transformed next week to commemorate the birth of photography.

The second ‘Illuminating Lacock’ exhibit will run from Saturday to February 9, and will see the iconic cloisters, driveway and exterior of the National Trust-owned house bathed in a range of colours and lights.

Following its launch in 2013, this year’s theme will be ‘the window’, in honour of the Abbey window that appeared in photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot’s famous first negative.

The famed inventor and former Abbey owner presented his first negative photograph to the world 175 years ago in 1839, and the Illuminating Lacock display will mark a year dedicated to the achievement.

National Trust marketing officer Kristine Heuser said: “The illuminations were a beautiful splash of colour in a grey January last year – they really help beat the winter blues.

“This is the second Illuminating Lacock Abbey festival we’ve run and from last year’s event we found that the installations are at their very best in the dark, so we decided to open in the evening for this event.

“We’re focusing on Henry Fox Talbot, his work and the window where he took the first negative.”

The Fox Talbot Museum will be open during the festival, where visitors can learn more about the invention of photography and Talbot’s life and work. In the upper gallery, photography exhibition Earth and Sky will show images taken by the Hubble telescope.

The exhibition runs every evening from 4-7pm, with after dark tickets from 4pm available at a reduced rate.

National Trust members and children under five are admitted free.

For more information, call (01249) 730459 or visit www.national trust.org.uk/lacock