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Ashby de la Zouche, Breedon, Grantham & Woolsthorpe Manor
Ashby de la Zouche
Ashby de la Zouche is a town in Leicestershire, famous for its fancy name of Britanny origin (Le Zouch) and its castle, which was made famous by Walter Scott's Ivanhoe where a tournament is held in Ashby. It was destroyed during the English civil war. The Loudoun monument is another curiosity both in shape and in denomination.
The first stop on our 5th campervanning trip, we hadn't planned to stop there but drifted here as a result of an error in exiting the highway. The first night was spent in a nearby pub's parking. Ashby was a destination that was on our list anyway. We decided to re-join the English heritage charity on this occasion. Our short stay (~2h45) mainly covered the castle & the church with a loop passing by Our Lady of Lourdes and back from Market street (see trajectory)
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Map of Ashby.
The highlight of the place: its castle.
Elena and Julia.
The main tower.
Walking on the frosty moats.
Avec papa, at the tower top.
Con mama.
View over our Lady of Lourdes (Catholic church).
Running in the sunken areas (probably training defending features).
Elena.
Julia.
Market Street.
The type of timber-frame house you can find there.
The Bull's head pub.
In the market hall, in front of the pub.
Saint Helen.
Inside.
A relic of the Black Death.
Breedon on the Hill
Breedon on the Hill is a must-go destination in England, a village of very old origin, it hosts the wonderful Church of St Mary and St Hardulph on top of its hill, that hosts itself a large body of extremely rare and valuable Anglo-Saxon art, possibly the oldest in the country, also including the longest frieze of this era.
It also features an unsettling skeleton sculpture, which has been unusual since the time it was put there, at the demand of George Shirley who set up this monument to grieve the loss in childbirth of his wife (Francesca) for whom he wrote this beautiful plea:
- Death, which untimely tore thee from my bed
- And robbed my home,
- Shall one day give me back with thee to wed
- In this thy tomb.
Julia with the Shirley monument, which she declared was "mon époux".
Elena admiring the frieze.
Detail of the Saxon engraving behind.
A small fraction of the said frieze.
Beautiful depiction of hell from a millennium ago.
Anglo-Saxon saint.
