Ashby-de-la-Zouch
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.