Ashby Castle

During our recent stay in Leicestershire, I visited Ashby de la Zouch and its Castle

The Castle has been run by English Heritage since 1983.

The manor of Aschebie is first documented in the Domesday survey of 1086 and for the next century formed part of the estates of the Earls of Leicester. They granted it to a family of Breton descent with the name ‘le Zouch’ (meaning ‘a stock’ or ‘stem’) in return for military service. Their apparently modest manor house probably stood on the site of the present castle; fragments of it may be preserved in the hall range.

Following the death of the last direct heir to the Zouch inheritance in 1399 and disputes over its ownership, Ashby was eventually granted in 1462 to William, Lord Hastings (c 1430–1483), as part of a much larger grant of land in the Midlands. Hastings had acquired immense power and wealth in the service of Edward IV

William Hastings (1st Baron Hastings) enhanced its fortifications from 1473.

It is clear that Hastings intended Ashby Castle to serve as his principal seat. He transformed the existing manor house with a series of vastly ambitious buildings and enclosed 3,000 acres to create a park for hunting

The death of Edward IV in 1483 brought Hastings’s career to a dramatic close. He was an obstacle to the royal ambitions of the Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III, and was summarily executed on 13 June 1483

The castle remained in use as the main family seat of his descendants, playing a prominent part in the Civil War, when it was held for the king.

The castle buildings were initially used to imprison prominent Royalists, but later in 1646 it was directed that the defences be demolished. The earl subsequently complained that the demolition squad had far exceeded its orders and entirely ruined his ‘only convenient mansion’

In 1819 the novelist Sir Walter Scott published a medieval romance, Ivanhoe. A tournament scene in the novel was set at Ashby and visitors flocked to see the castle ruins. 

Lord Moira’s agent repaired the ruins, transforming them into a popular resort, and the first guidebook to the town was published in 1824. 

View from the top of the tower of Ashby Manor - now a school

View of the former Castle gardens

For more details of Ashby Castle see English Heritage's site Ashby Castle - well worth a visit

The Battlefield Line

During a week's break in Moira, Leicestershire I visited the historic Battlefield Line

In 1873 the Midland and London North Western railway companies opened the Ashby and Nuneaton Joint Railway. For more details about the history of the line click Battlefield Line then click "History" towards the top right of the page

Today the line  it is the headquarters of the Battlefield Line and the home of the Shackerstone Railway Society, which operates the railway from Shackerstone Station, via Market Bosworth, to Shenton, near to the site of the famous Battle of Bosworth in 1485

At the outset in the 1870s the plan was to site the station where it is today, but in response to a request from Lord Howe of Gopsall Hall, the Committee agreed to move it north of the junction and call it "Gopsall"; but soon altered their minds and moved it back to the junction

I arrived an hour or so before the first train and spent my time exploring the station and its surroundings before boarding today's train - sadly not a steam engine.

The line is run by volunteers and I spoke at some length to one who was renovating his WWII guard's van. He knew a lot about the line and its history - his passion and enthusiasm for railways shone through.

This Midland Railway Square Box is believed to be the oldest one of its kind still in use. The wooden bodied box was rescued from Measham, where it was being used as a Canal Inspectors Office. It was transported to Shackerstone and placed on to its present brick base in 1978.

More details of Shackerstone Station are on the Battlefield Line website Battlefield Line - it's worth exploring the many and various links from the Home page

The first stop was Market Bosworth

The station is to the west of the town 

The original station buildings survive on platform 1, but are used by a private garage, appropriately called Station Garage. The track in platform one is a siding, used for the storage of wagons and diesel shunters in various states of disrepair. Platform 2 is on the running line and is the only one in use. 

The signal box survives, as do several semaphore signals, though this signalling is not in commission. The waiting room was originally at Chester Road on the Birmingham Cross-City Line; when this line was electrified between 1991 and 1993, the building was dismantled and reconstructed at Market Bosworth

Shenton railway station is located about 0.5 miles from the village of Shenton, It is the southern terminus of the Battlefield Line Railway. The station is located at the foot of Ambion Hill and is actually the reconstructed Humberstone Road Station from Leicester. The original station closed in 1968 and was dismantled and relocated (except for a small lamp room that now serves as the Station Pottery)

A tour round the Garden of England - Part 4

The final stage of our grand tour started with a couple of nights in Folkestone

Our campsite was on the coast about 40 minutes walk along the coastal path from Folkestone Harbour

On our tour of the town we came across a number of exhibits of Folkestone Artworks. This is the name for the collection of works originally commissioned by the Creative Foundation for the Folkestone Triennial that are now on permanent display in public spaces around the town

Cornelia Parker created a Folkestone version of one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, Copenhagen’s ‘Little Mermaid’. All women of Folkestone were offered the opportunity to model for the mermaid. Cornelia Parker chose Georgina Baker, mother of two and Folkestone born and bred. 

‘Carrancas’ is inspired by Brazilian boat figureheads, used as symbolic talismans to protect sailors. The various Carrancas can be found in the inner and outer harbour

Along the seafront we came across this bell suspended high above the beach. It is a 16th-century tenor bell from Scraptoft Church in Leicestershire, which had been removed for not being in tune with the others. It is suspended from a steel cable strung between two 20m high steel beams, placed 30m apart. Why? A good question!

It is another exhibit from Folkestone Artworks. Since the 1990s Norwegian artist A K Dolven has worked with the idea of being at odds with one’s surroundings, and more specifically, for the past few years, with disused bells - so now you know!

We could not resist taking a ride on this funicular railway - The Leas Lift. It was originally installed in 1885 and is now Grade II Listed. The Lift carries passengers between the seafront and the promenade. It is one of the oldest water lifts in the UK and operates using water and gravity.

On June 1991, one of the lifts was seen in an episode of The Darling Buds of May. David Jason, Pam Ferris, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Philip Franks, Anna Massey and Moray Watson all appeared in the Lift. In June 2009, Shepway District Council’s lease ran out and it was decided that the lift was too expensive to run. Campaigners protested against the closure and in April 2010, it was announced that the lift was to be restored. It re-opened in 2011.

We left Folkestone on the wettest day of our tour. Undaunted by the rain we visited Sissinghurst Castle Gardens

Sissinghurst's garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It has been owned and maintained by the National Trust since 1967 and is grade I listed. 

The garden is designed as a series of 'rooms', each with a different character of colour and/or theme, the walls being high clipped hedges and many pink brick walls. Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new interconnections, while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in the interior of each room exciting

They clearly achieved their objective - even in driving rain!

When Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930 it was derelict but they purchased the ruins and the farm around it and began constructing the garden we know today. The layout by and planting were both strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens

The gardens were first opened to the public in 1938

For more photos of the gardens click Sissinghurst

Moving on from Sissinghurst, we travelled to Bodiam Castle - it was still raining!

This is a superb example of a moated castle.

Bodiam Castle was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III. It was the home of the Dalyngrigge family and the centre of the manor of Bodiam for many years.

Possession of Bodiam Castle passed through several generations of Dalyngrigges, until their line became extinct. The castle then passed by marriage to the Lewknor family. Descendants of the Lewknors owned the castle until at least the 16th century

By the start of the English Civil War in 1641, Bodiam Castle was in the possession of Lord Thanet. He supported the Royalist cause, and sold the castle to help pay fines levied against him by Parliament. The castle was subsequently dismantled, and was left as a picturesque ruin until its purchase by John Fuller in 1829. Under his auspices, the castle was partially restored before being sold to George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, and later to Lord Curzon, both of whom undertook further restoration work. The castle is protected as a Grade I listed building and has been owned by The National Trust since 1925.

This concluded our tour of the Garden of England - well worth visiting