Market Harborough, Leicestershire

 

Market Harborough is a town in the south-east corner of Leicestershire, just inside the border with Northamptonshire. It has a population of 23,000.

The town was founded around 1170 as one of the new towns established by King Henry II, and a market has been held here since 1204. A cattle market was held in The Square (which is actually a triangle!) until 1903, when it was moved to Springfield Street.

High Street leads away from The Square, being lined with a number of elegant Georgian houses, most of which have been converted to shops. Two buildings of note in High Street are the Parish Church of St Dionysius and the old Grammar School.

The church, built of ironstone, dates from the 14^th century. The spire, which rises to 161 feet above the ground, is a particularly fine example of a “broach spire”, namely one that has eight triangular faces that rise from a square base atop a tower. The church is also unusual, for a parish church, both for its dedication to St Dionysius and for not having a churchyard.

Market Harborough is close to the Civil War battlefield of Naseby, where, on 14^th June 1645, King Charles I was decisively beaten by the Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell. Charles held a council of war at Market Harborough before the battle, but after his defeat Cromwell occupied the town and announced his victory from the Bell Inn. The church was used to hold 4,500 Royalist prisoners overnight.

The timber-framed Grammar School was built in 1614. It stands on sturdy posts with an open ground floor, which served as a butter market. The school was the gift of Robert Smyth, who was born poor but journeyed to London to seek his fortune and managed so to do. One can still see the Biblical quotations, carved into the arches supporting the upper floor, that Smyth insisted on having made.

The building ceased to be a school in 1892 and it is now used as an exhibition centre.

Other notable buildings in the town include Brooke House, which was built in 1708, and Catherwood House (in The Square) which was built in the Gothic style in 1876 and was lived in at one time by Sir William Bragg (1862-1942) who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for his work on X-ray crystallography.

 © John Welford

 

 

Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire

 

Melton Mowbray is a town with a population of around 25,500, lying some 15 miles north-east of Leicester in the County of Leicestershire. It was formerly known as a centre for fox-hunting and also as the home of the Melton Mowbray pork pie, as well as being one of the towns where Stilton cheese is made. Fox-hunting is now banned in the UK, but pork pies and cheese are definitely legal and still very popular products of the area.

It is said that Melton Mowbray is the town that gave rise to the saying “painting the town red”. The story goes that in 1837 the eccentric Marquis of Waterford and his friends rampaged through the streets of the town after a day’s fox-hunting, armed with pots of red paint with which they daubed several of the town’s stone buildings, as well as an unfortunate lock-keeper.

Burton Street leads into the town from the River Eye, which changes its name to the Wreake after leaving the town. On this street may be found the Harboro Hotel, the Georgian front of which has changed little since it was one of the town’s main coaching inns.

Also on Burton Street is Anne of Cleves’ House, which was built in 1384 and given by King Henry VIII to his fourth wife after he divorced her in 1540. However, there is no evidence that she ever lived there.

The Bede Houses, on the opposite side of the street from Anne of Cleves’ House, date from 1640 and were founded by a wealthy townsman who endowed the houses for six elderly men and, in the 18^th century, room was made to accommodate six elderly women as well.

At the top of the street stands the gracious parish church of St Mary. It was built between 1170 and 1532, the oldest part of the church being the lower section of the 100-foot high tower. Inside, the church has a set of pillars and arches down each side of the transepts – a feature it shares with only three other English parish churches – and each transept has a rare brass candelabra dating from 1746. The church has a wealth of stained glass, most of which is Victorian, but some of it dates from the 14^th century.

A previous organist and choirmaster of the church was the conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967), who officiated here between 1914 and 1924.

Many people come to Melton Mowbray to sample and buy its famous pork pies, which were first made here in 1831. The pies are handmade according to a particular method for which the town claims the patent - it is illegal to make and sell a Melton Mowbray pork pie other than in Melton Mowbray!

Stilton cheeses also have protected status, as they are not allowed to be made outside the counties of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, although they take their name from a village in Cambridgeshire! Melton Mowbray is one of the centres for its manufacture.

© John Welford

Places associated with Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Days Queen” had a very short life, being executed on 12^th February 1554 at the age of 16. Her life was a sheltered one, in that she spent most of her childhood being educated and she did not travel much. The number of places that are associated with her, and which can be visited today, is therefore limited.

Bradgate Park, Leicestershire

It has long been assumed that Jane Grey was born here, in October 1537, but it is possible that she was born in London and was only brought to the family home of the Greys a little later. However, there is no doubt that she spent much of her life here, especially in her earlier years.

Bradgate Hall and Park had been owned by the Grey family since the 15^th century, with the building of the Hall having been begun in 1490. It is fortunate that the estate has been preserved virtually intact down to the present day, having been presented to the people of Leicestershire by a descendant of the Greys in 1928.

Visitors can therefore wander over most of the 850 acres of the park, which forms part of ancient Charnwood Forest to the north-west of Leicester. This area has many features of interest to geologists, botanists and zoologists, with unusual species of plants, birds and animals to be seen, including herds of red and fallow deer. Some of the world’s oldest fossils have been found here.

However, the house that Jane Grey grew up in is mostly a ruin, although some parts are better preserved than others. Bradgate Hall is easily seen from the main track that runs across the southern part of the Park and visitors can walk through the ruins, although deadly nightshade plants have been allowed to grow here!

Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire

Jane Grey found life at Bradgate not much to her liking, as her parents often treated her unkindly. However, she was much happier when, in the spring of 1547, Katherine Parr, the surviving last wife of King Henry VIII, invited her to join her household. Jane had, in effect, been “bought” by Katherine’s new husband, Thomas Seymour, as a potential bargaining chip in his dynastic ambitions, but for the nine-year-old Jane this was a welcome release.

At first, Jane stayed at Seymour House in London, but in the summer of 1548 she travelled with Katherine Parr, who was heavily pregnant, to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which had recently been given to Thomas Seymour by the young King Edward VI.

Jane’s stay at Sudeley was short, because Katherine died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, in September of that year, and Jane acted as chief mourner at her funeral. She returned to Bradgate Hall where she remained with only a few brief interludes in London, even after her marriage to Guildford Dudley in May 1553.

Much of the castle that Jane Grey would have known was destroyed during the 17^th century after the Civil War, the current Sudeley Castle being mostly a 19^th century restoration. That said, the west wing of the castle does date largely from the 16^th century. The chapel contains the tomb of Katherine Parr and there is a stained glass window that features Jane Grey.

Sudeley Castle is open to visitors on a limited basis because it is still a family home. General admission is granted to the gardens, grounds and special exhibitions (housed in the west wing of the castle), but access to the castle apartments is only by conducted tour on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The gardens are well worth seeing, especially as they have been designed to reflect past ages, including those of the Tudors. They include a knot garden, a herb garden and the formal Queens’ garden that is lined by yew hedges.

The Tower of London

This is where Jane’s life came to a premature end on the executioner’s block. She was beheaded on Tower Green, as had been two former wives of King Henry VIII, namely Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Private executions out of the public gaze were granted to royal persons, whereas others took place on Tower Hill, outside the Tower walls.

On the day of her execution Jane watched her husband being led away and saw his headless corpse return on a cart shortly afterwards, before her turn came. She met her end with great courage, although she panicked for a moment when she was blindfolded and could not feel her way to the block.

Visitors can see the execution site and the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula where she was buried. However, Jane was housed during the weeks before her execution at the house of the head gaoler, so there is no cell or dungeon to visit that was once her prison.

The admission price to the Tower of London is not cheap, so visitors will want to get their money’s worth by seeing as much as possible of the various towers and buildings within the complex that constitute the site. Among the attractions are the Crown Jewels and many displays and exhibitions that tell the fascinating story of a fortress that has been standing for nearly a thousand years. Tours are led by yeoman warders who wear the same uniforms that would have been seen by Lady Jane Grey during her final days.

© John Welford

Barlestone in Domesday Book

The following is the entry for Barlestone (Leicestershire) in Domesday Book, which was commissioned by King William I in 1086:

“Ralph and Arnold hold of Hugh in Berulvestone (i.e. Barlestone) 3 carucates of land, less 1 virgate. There is land for 2 ploughs. 6 villans with 2 bordars have these ploughs there. There is woodland 3 furlongs long and 2 furlongs broad. It was worth 10s; now 40s.

Geoffrey holds of Robert 1 carucate of land and 1 virgate in Berulvestone. There is land for 1½ ploughs. There are 2 villans with 3 bordars having 1 plough. It was worth 8s; now 10s.”

Some explanations:

Carucate = the area that could be ploughed with an 8-ox team
Virgate = one quarter of a carucate
Villan = a villager who was subject to the lord of the manor but enjoyed certain rights
Bordar = a cottager who was of lower social status than a villan

The values, in shillings, relate to what the land was deemed to be worth before the Norman conquest in 1066 and what it was worth at the time of the survey, according to the commissioners .

Today, my home village of Barlestone is home to about 2,500 people. It has a school, two pubs, three churches, a village shop, a doctor’s surgery, a dental practice, a fish-and-chip shop, an Indian restaurant, a Chinese takeaway, two hairdressers, a football club, a bowls club, and regular buses to Leicester and other neighbouring towns and villages.

It has come on a lot since 1086! However, it is still surrounded by farmland and the odd bit of woodland.

© John Welford

The Ashby Canal, Leicestershire

The Ashby Canal is unusual among British waterways in several respects. For one thing, it doesn't go to the place after which it is named, and in fact it never did--although it came close!

For another thing, it proceeds for 30 miles through gently undulating countryside without a single lock. It is therefore ideal for the novice narrow-boater who just wants to get used to steering a boat round lots of twists and turns without having to worry about negotiating locks. On the other hand, "doing the locks" is great fun too!

The canal was originally built to transport lime and coal southwards from the works and mines near Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire. The canal links to the Coventry Canal near Bedworth (Warwickshire), and hence directly to Coventry and indirectly to Birmingham, and via the Oxford and Grand Union canals to all points south. For boaters on the Warwickshire Ring with two days to spare, a trip up the Ashby and back is well worth the trouble.

The first plans for the Ashby Canal included a link to the River Trent at Burton, but this was soon seen as being over-ambitious. Indeed, it was envisaged from a very early stage that when the canal reached the point where locks would be essential, a series of narrow-gauge tramways would connect the canal to the mines and limeworks. The canal itself therefore only ever reached as far as Moira, which is about three miles from Ashby.

The first disaster to hit the canal was the realisation that the coal reserves at Ashby were nothing like as great as had been thought. There would therefore not be the traffic to allow the canal to make a profit, and any thoughts of extending the canal to the Trent were shelved for ever. Good fortune then arrived, in the shape of extensive coal seams being discovered at Moira itself, so the canal found itself a purpose almost by accident. Moira coal was of such high quality that it was in demand as far south as London, and the route to get it there had just been constructed!

However, the second disaster was caused by the very thing that made the canal a success. When you take coal out of the ground, you almost always create subsidence as the layers above the coal seams press down to fill the holes that have been created. This happened in the Measham area, just south of Moira, in 1918 and again in 1966, the end result being that the present canal is about eight miles short of its original length.

As things stand, the canal ends near Snarestone, which is a tiny village with an excellent pub, but not much else. To go the whole length, you have to go through the Snarestone tunnel, which is 250 yards long, but until recently you could only go less than half a mile before needing to turn round and come back through the tunnel. However, a further stretch has already been restored, adding another half mile of navigable waterway. Work is in progress to extend this length even further.

The coalmines at Moira have long been abandoned, but the village now has a new lease of life as the headquarters of the National Forest, which is a scheme to transform a huge area of central England, much of it blighted by its industrial and mining heritage, into woodland and forest. The visitor centre at Moira, Conkers, is an excellent place to learn about how a forest works and its wildlife, as well as being an adventure centre for all ages. The plan is therefore to bring the Ashby Canal back to Moira so that the industrial history of the area can be linked seamlessly with its new role.

The Ashby Canal Association  has been working hard over a number of years to achieve this goal, and there is already a 1.5 mile stretch of usable canal running alongside the Moira Furnace, but it is unconnected to any other waterway. It is no longer possible to use the original route for the stretch between Moira and Snarestone, so the plan is to make use of a disused railway line through the small town of Measham.

For much of its length, the Ashby Canal meanders through open countryside. Because it sticks to the 300 foot contour for the whole of its length, and villages in this area tend to be built on hilltops, the canal passes within sight of several settlements without actually going through them.

One exception is the town of Hinckley, towards the southern end of the canal. This is an ancient town founded on the hosiery industry, but the canal skirts its western edge, passing close to a modern industrial estate and the Triumph motorcycle factory. The Limekilns pub is worth a visit, as it is built where the canal passes underneath the A5 trunk road, which was originally the Roman Watling Street. The building appears to be on two floors if you are on the road, but three if you are on the canal.

Close to its halfway point the canal crosses the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, fought in 1485 between England's just and rightful king, Richard III, and the foul usurper Henry Tudor. What was formerly presumed to be the battlefield site is well marked out along a circular pathway that offers a good, brisk walk, and there is also a visitor centre. However, recent discoveries have revealed that the battle actually took place about half a mile away.

If you moor up at the battlefield you can also take a trip on the Battlefield Line Railway, which is a preserved four-and-a-half-mile section of the former Ashby and Nuneaton Joint Railway. Throughout the summer there are regular services between Shenton (battlefield) and Shackerstone. The canal passes close to all three stations on the line, although it takes six miles to do so! The Shackerstone Railway Society has preserved a large number of steam and diesel locomotives, many of which make regular trips along the line.

The thing most worth seeing on this beautiful stretch of water is the English countryside at its peaceful best. Canals attract wildlife in droves, and you will almost certainly see family groups of swans, ducks and moorhens either swimming around between the reeds or looking hopefully at you for titbits. You may also see herons, birds of prey and, if you're really lucky, kingfishers. Look out for water voles as well.

© John Welford

Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle, Leicestershire

Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a small market town in the far west of Leicestershire, within easy reach of all the major cities of the region via the motorway network. Its chief feature is undoubtedly its partially-ruined castle, which is well worth a visit.

The castle must be approached on foot, although there are car parks in the town not far away. The feature that strikes the visitor first and foremost is the massive tower on the right-hand side of the range of buildings. This is the 80-foot high Hastings Tower, but you may want to leave its exploration until last.

Ashby Castle dates from the mid-12^th century, when the manor of Ashby was held by the Zouch family, but the remains you can see cover a range of dates up to 1483, when the Tower was completed by William, Lord Hastings, who lost his head on the orders of King Richard III in that same year.

One way to explore the castle is to work your round from left to right, starting at the kitchen and ending at the tower, or there is another, very unusual, way, which will be mentioned soon! The buildings you can see are in various stages of ruin, with nearly all the rooms open to the sky and some of the walls reduced to outlines on the ground, although others reach two or more storeys high.

Much of this ruination was deliberate, as the castle was one of many that were “slighted” during the English Civil War, with the destruction at Ashby taking place in 1648. The slighting of a castle meant the blowing up with gunpowder of one complete side of each building, thus causing roofs to collapse. Local builders would have helped themselves to free building stone over the coming years, thus leaving the site in a condition close to what can be seen today.

The kitchen complex is of considerable size, and, with a little imagination, one can picture the hive of activity that this would have been during the heyday of the castle when the Lord of the Manor was feasting in the great hall. You can see two massive fireplaces, a cauldron recess and an oven in the remaining walls, and there may have been more in the west wall, now missing.

Any children in your party will probably be far more interested in the “secret” passage that leads underground from the kitchen to the Hastings Tower, which is the alternative means of exploration mentioned above. When I first visited Ashby Castle, some years ago, this passage was unlit, which meant a slightly scary experience as you felt your way along in pitch darkness. However, health and safety rules have now meant that you are less likely to bump into somebody coming the other way, although the passage is still narrow, not straight, quite low, dim and damp, especially after heavy rain.

Continuing round the buildings from the kitchen you come to the buttery and pantry, which were originally the solar, and then the great hall, which would have been the heart of the castle, used not only for meals but holding court and as the dormitory for most of the castle’s inhabitants. You can make out where the hearth would have been, this being an open fire near the centre of the hall, the smoke of which would have escaped via windows or a hole in the roof.

Next is the solar, being the private quarters of the lord’s family, which would have been on two floors with divisions into separate rooms. Then visit the chapel, much of which was built at the same time as the tower and would have been a very impressive building, both in size and quality. The adjoining “priest’s rooms” are unlikely to have been used for this purpose.

The Hastings Tower, when complete, was virtually a castle within a castle, as it rose to 90 feet when first built, part of it comprising four storeys and part of it seven, thus allowing for plenty of accommodation. The tower would have had its own kitchen, water supply and latrines, and therefore have been self-contained as a fortified manor house during a time of conflict. Given that its builder, Lord Hastings, was an active participant in the Wars of the Roses, it is hardly surprising that he had this aim in mind.

Although the bulk of the tower has been lost, one important feature still remains, this being the spiral staircase that leads all the way to the top, and which is perfectly safe to climb. As you pass each doorway on the way up or down, there is somewhere to stand aside so that you can pass people going the other way. Take care when climbing the stairs, especially on a wet day, because many of the stones are worn and uneven, although some have been replaced by modern steps, especially near the top.

The climb is well worth the view you get from the top, where there is room to stop and look around without getting in anyone else’s way. You can see right over the town of Ashby and across into the Leicestershire countryside. Keep an eye on the children, though, because it is possible that someone could fall over the edge, and it is an 80-foot drop to the grass below.

There is a large grassy area adjacent to the castle, this being the site of the original garden and fish ponds. This is great for allowing children to run around in, especially as there are safe grass slopes to roll down! On certain days of the year this area is used for historical displays and reconstructions.

West Leicestershire is not normally on the tourist trail, but Ashby is not far from the popular destination of Burton-on-Trent, famous for its brewing connections, and is close to the A42 main route from Birmingham to Nottingham. Ashby is itself an interesting town to wander round, and an hour’s break to visit the town and its castle would be well repaid.

© John Welford