Ashbourne

There can be no doubt left in the mind of the visitor who leaves the limestone plateau of the White Peak and travels south to the cobbled Market Place at Ashbourne that they have well and truly left the highlands behind.

Although just outside the National Park boundary, Ashbourne proclaims itself as ‘the Gateway to Dovedale’. But there is much more to this charming Georgian town than that, including its famous gingerbread and unique Shrovetide football match. It is one of Derbyshire’s finest old towns having celebrated the 750th anniversary of its market charter in 2007. It is a pleasure to visit and the cobbled market place is still used twice weekly (Thursday and Saturday) – a popular haunt for bargain-hunters, whether locals or visitors. It has an enviable reputation for its abundance of antique shops, other shopping facilities and its modern leisure centre.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘Essiburn’, - derived from the local stream with its many ash trees - it was originally a small settlement lying on the northern bank of Henmore Brook, which already had a church. It was a 13th-century lord of the manor who laid out the new town to the east, around its unusual shaped market place. Many of the town’s traders, in order to continue to enjoy the benefits without paying the town’s tolls, built themselves houses on the south side of the Brook. The area became known as Compton (or ‘Campdene‘) and it was slowly absorbed into the town.

The triangular, sloping Market Square, in the heart of Ashbourne, was part of the new development begun in the 13th century that shifted the town to the east, away from the church. It was from this market place during the height of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, that Bonnie Prince Charlie proclaimed his father to be King James III.

Though the old bull ring no longer exists, the town boasts many fine examples of 18th-century architecture as well as some older buildings. On the Gingerbread Shop can be seen the original wattle and daub and probably dates from the 15th century but for many years was covered by a mock Elizabethan front. Ashbourne Gingerbread has a fascinating history, and the recipe is said to have been acquired from French prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars. The personal chef of a captured French general reputedly made it in 1805, and his recipe was copied and used locally. You can buy it today at Spencers bakery in the town centre.

Also worthy of a second glance is the unique double inn sign for the Green Man and Black’s Head Royal Hotel. The inn sign stretches over St John’s Street and was put up when the Blackamoor Inn joined with the Green Man in 1825. Though the Blackamoor is no more, the sign remains and it claims to be the longest hotel name in the country. If you look carefully, you will see that the blackamoor’s head is smiling on one side and scowling on the other. Of Georgian origin, the amalgamated hotel has played host to James Boswell, Dr Johnson and the young Princess Victoria. Ashbourne was, in fact, one of Dr Johnson’s favourite places; he came to the town on several occasions between 1737 and 1784 to visit Dr John Taylor, an old friend.  He also visited the hotel so often that he had his own chair with his name on it! The chair can still be seen at the Green Man. Today one of the two bars in named after him.

A stroll down Church Street, described by Pevsner as one of the finest streets in Derbyshire, takes the walker past many interesting Georgian houses - including the Grey House, which stands next to the Grammar School. Founded by Sir Thomas Cockayne on behalf of Elizabeth I in 1585, the school was visited on its 400th anniversary by the present Queen. Almost opposite the Grey House is The Mansion, the late 17th-century home of the Reverend Dr John Taylor, oldest friend of Dr Johnson. In 1764 a domed, octagonal drawing room was added to the house, and a new brick façade built facing the street. Next to The Mansion are the Owfield’s Almshouses, dating from the early 17th-century. Next to them, at right angles to the street, are Pegg’s Almshouses, founded in 1669. Ashbourne also retains many of its narrow alleyways and, in particular, there is Lovatt’s Yard, where the town lock-up can be seen.

The Parish Church of St Oswald, with its elegant 212 feet spire, was described by Victorian novelist George Eliot as ‘the finest mere parish church in England’. The town was a regular haunt of George Eliot, who used it as a model for the fictional town of ‘Oakbourne’ in the novel Adam Bede. James Boswell said that the church was ‘one of the largest and most luminous that I have seen in any town of the same size’. St Oswald’s stands on the site of a Minster church mentioned in the Domesday Book, though most of what we see today dates from rebuilding work in the 13th century. There is a dedication brass in the south transept dated 1241. The south doorway, with its dog-toothed decoration and ribbed moulding, reflects the church’s classic early-English style. St Oswald’s has chapels to its transepts, adding to the spacious feeling that is more reminiscent of a small cathedral than a parish church. To the southeast of the church are the Spalden Almshouses, built between 1723 and 1724.

Don’t miss the monuments to the Bradbourne and Cockayne families in the north transept chapel or that of Penelope Boothby, who died in 1791 at the tender age of five. It is perhaps sculptor Thomas Banks’s most famous work, and is in white Carrara marble. The figure of the child is so life-like that it appears that she is only sleeping. Queen Charlotte, wife of George II, is supposed to have burst into tears when she saw the sculpture at the Royal Academy exhibition. The moving epitaph reads:

‘She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark, and the wreck was total.’

It is said that Penelope’s parents separated at the child’s grave and never spoke to each other again.

More recently Ashbourne was the birthplace in 1829 of Catherine Mumford, who later married William Booth and helped him found the Salvation Army. Catherine became known as the ‘Mother of the Army’. She was responsible for many of the changes in the new organization, designing the flag and bonnets for the ladies, and contributed to the Army’s ideas on many important issues and matters of belief. There is a bust of her in the War Memorial Gardens.

Ashbourne is home, too, to the famous Royal Shrovetide football match, played on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday – an annual game of ‘traditional’ football, played with a leather ball stuffed with sawdust. Apart from the pubs the whole of the town closes for this event. The two teams, the ‘Up’ards’ (those born north of the Henmore Brook) and the ‘Down’ards’ (those born south of it) begin their match at 2pm behind the Green Man Hotel. The game continues until 10pm unless a goal is scored after 5pm. The two goals are situated three miles apart, along the Brook, on the site of the old mills at Clifton and Sturston. Despite there being hundreds of participants, it is rare for more than one goal to be scored in this slow-moving game. To describe it as boisterous would be an understatement. The violence involved has led to intermittent attempts to ban it, but the game has been played here for hundreds of years and fortunately it still continues.