Buildings & Architecture

This is the Henmore Brook and it has had this name going back to the 1600’s when The Complete Angler (Isaac Walton) stopped on the bridge in 1678 while visiting Ashbourne.

Much earlier in the 800s the area had been under the control of the Danish invaders and it was known by a name of Scandinavian origin, Scolbrook. That is at least up until at least 1300. The brook was a civil administrative boundary between Ashbourne and Compton for centuries. It goes back to long before William the Conqueror and 1066 to the time of the Danes and lasted until the 1800s

Today the brook is the boundary between the two teams who play each other on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday at Royal Shrovetide Football. Those from the Ashbourne side are called Upards while those with any form of connection with the Compton side are Downards.

Further information about Henmore Brook can be found on the OurAshbourne website http://ourashbourne.co.uk.

A walk around the heritage sites of Ashbourne, including Henmore Brook, can be found in the Ashbourne Treasures Town Heritage Trail, available from the Ashbourne Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Yard on the Market Place.

People have shopped here for 500 years.  This picture shows the cafe boarded up in advance of Ashbourne’s Shrovetide street football game played throughout the Town on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.

Inside the cafe area, some lath and plaster has been exposed for all to see.  When it was built in 1492 it was three separate units, which can still be seen in the roof space (no public access).

The layout of 3 houses facing the street – such as this building – next to three houses end-on to the street – as can be seen in the neighbouring Natural Choice Shop – is clearly shown on the Ashbourne map of 1547.  Look inside Natural Choice to see its cruck-frame construction of 1526 hidden behind the bland brick front.

A walk around the heritage sites of Ashbourne, including the Gingerbread cafe, can be found at Ashbourne Treasures Town Heritage Trail, which can be found at the Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Yard off the Market Place.

 

Originally opened as a “free” church in 1871 with a board of trustees formed by Francis Wright, who had had a disagreement with the clergy of the Parish Church (St Oswald’s church).  Wright was a low-churchman who disapproved of the vicar’s high church leanings.

Henry Isaac Stevens built the church in a variation of the Romanesque style.  Over the doorway, you will find the words from Mathew 18:20: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them”, indicating a gathering of the faithful as opposed to Wright’s opinion of the parish church congregation.

After Wright’s death, this Church ran into financial difficulties and eventually joined the Church of England as a “peculiar” – a church without a parish.  It is now governed by a board of trustees and sits within the parish of Ashbourne.

[Read more…] about St John’s Church

The Town Hall is one of the few Victorian building in the Market Place and has a typical mid-Victorian highly decorated stone front.  It is built on the site of the Talbot Inn, mentioned in Izzaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler when two travellers stop here for a drink of beer on horseback.

There is a commemorative plaque on the front of the Hall to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s visit to the Town with his army in 1745.  The date of the building (1861) and the names of the trustees are on a stone pediment at the top of the building.

[Read more…] about Town Hall