Scenic Place in Leicestershire

Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a historic market town in Leicestershire whose name alone announces its Norman-French origins, the de la Zouch family who gave the town its distinctive suffix having been among the Anglo-Norman lords who established themselves in the English Midlands following the Conquest. The town is best known today for its impressive castle ruins, which represent one of the finest surviving examples of a late medieval fortified manor house in the East Midlands and tell the story of the most powerful magnate family in fifteenth-century England. Ashby Castle was developed into its grandest form by William Lord Hastings, who was created Baron Hastings by Edward IV and became one of the most important figures in the Yorkist political establishment. The great Hastings Tower, the most impressive surviving element of the castle, was built by William in the 1470s and rises to a considerable height despite the demolition ordered by Parliament following the Civil War in the seventeenth century. Hastings met his end in one of the most abrupt and dramatic moments of the Wars of the Roses when Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had him summarily executed in 1483 during the council meeting in which Richard seized effective power in England, his death dramatised by Shakespeare as a consequence of his loyalty to Edward IV's family. The castle is managed by English Heritage and allows visitors to explore the ruins including the tower, the great hall and the domestic buildings that survive in various states of preservation. The combination of architectural interest and the vivid historical associations of the Hastings family makes it one of the more compelling castle ruins in the Midlands. Walter Scott set scenes from his novel Ivanhoe at a tournament ground near Ashby, giving the town a further fictional dimension in the romantic tradition. The town itself is a pleasant Midlands market town with a good range of independent shops and the Queen's Head Hotel, a building with its own historic character. The surrounding Leicestershire countryside provides gentle walking and cycling.

Market Harborough in Leicestershire is an attractive market town on the River Welland whose combination of the medieval grammar school building with its remarkable open ground floor designed to shelter market traders, the handsome parish church of St Dionysius and the Georgian and Victorian commercial architecture creates one of the most rewarding and least visited market town experiences in the East Midlands. The town has strong associations with the Civil War, having been the staging point for Charles I's army before the decisive defeat at Naseby in 1645. The Old Grammar School of 1614, raised on timber pillars to allow the market to shelter beneath it, is one of the most unusual medieval educational buildings in England, its combination of educational and commercial functions in a single structure reflecting the medieval understanding that the two activities were complementary. The Canal Museum at Foxton Locks a few miles away provides an outstanding example of the narrowboat canal heritage of the East Midlands. The combination of the town heritage and the Foxton Locks visit creates a rewarding day in the Leicestershire countryside.