Rhubarb & Mustard Café & Shop Places of Interest Retail business Steeple Morden 1 St Marys Church 1 Crumps Butchers 18 2 URC Church 2 Days Bakers 3 Merchant Taylor's House 3 Pharmacy 4 Museum 4 Rhubarb & Mustard Café & Shop 5 Parish Room & Post Office 5 Village stores ST 9 River Cam A 6 TIO Cottage Garden 6 Sue Birch Hairdresser N 12 GREEN LANE 7 The Springs 7 Ashwell Dentist FORDHAM RO A Sue Birch Hairdresser MILL D 8 Cob Wall 8 Country Properties STR CL EET Estate Agents 9 Lock Up 9 Ashwell Garage 10 Recreation Ground 11 10 Rose & Crown Pub 11 War Memorial S 10 P 11 Bushell & Strike Pub R 12 The Cemetery IN R 12 Three Tuns Pub & Hotel ET G ROLLYS E 13 HES Small Gains* LANE E H N P R EA A OS 13 T D L L Bradleys Hairdressers S HI 14 Village Hall S P

A 14 Ashwell Gallery L C 15 Arbury Banks* L 7 U ASHWELL STREET 3 I L G Ashwell & Morden 15 Ashwell Jewellers A M 16 Bear House RD Railway Station ASHWELL 1 9 I Ashwell Garage N 11 17 Forresters Cottages for further details on HODWELL ET ER E Ashwell Retail Outlets visit 12 18 Bluegates Dairy S H STR

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Mobb's Hole

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CENTRAL Parish Council BEDFORDSHIRE Ashwell

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Highley This leaflet has been produced by Ashwell Parish Council. Arlesey Arlesey Hitchin The Knoll Hill Hitchin Chalkman's Knoll Pembroke Ashwell Farm & Morden Post-medieval Ashwell From the sixteenth to late nineteenth centuries Ashwell became The marketplace filled with buildings and a farming community. gardens, while the inns and beerhouses served local trade. Barley was a particularly important crop: malted and brewed with water At that time farms from the chalk springs it produced excellent beer. and inns would have brewed their own beer for workers and guests; commercial breweries such as Fordhams and Pages (whose malthouse is now the Village Hall ) were built in the 19th century. In 1863 the parish was enclosed: new farms were created on the four open fields (North Field, Quarry Field, Claybush and Redlands Field) that for centuries had been farmed in common. Rural industries such as the making of straw plait for hats provided work, particularly for women. Most men worked on the land, or at trades connected with farming. Ashwell Today Most residents of Ashwell no longer work in agriculture, but farming continues to define the landscape of parish. Fields wheat, sugar beet, peas and oil-seed rape change colour with the barley, seasons. In summer dairy cattle graze the pastures of Bluegates Dairy , while ley grassland and maize produce silage to feed them There is also a pig unit and flock of rare breeds through the winter. sheep in the parish. The paths and byways of Ashwell offer many opportunities to relax while exploring the landscape and history of the parish. A leaflet containing Ashwell footpaths is available from local village retailers. If you have questions about Ashwell or wish to report a problem, or via please contact the Ashwell Parish Clerk: [email protected] the website www.ashwell.gov.uk Station

Pembroke Baldock & Cottage Letchworth Royston HERTFORDSHIRE Cat Ditch Museum Mitchell D A Hill O R N Hare TO S Baldock Y A505 Park O Station Farm R

Baldock & Letchworth

Scale 1:34,833 Designed and produced for Ashwell Parish Council by Oxford Cartographers, 0 ¼ ½ ¾ 1 kilometre www.oxfordcartographers.com 98581

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown Copyright and database rights 2020 website: ashwellmuseum.org.uk 0 ¼ ½ ¾ 1 mile Other data © OpenStreetMap contributors

Lock Up Bear House Cob Wall Forresters Cottages tural landscape with villas set in well-tended fields but also a About Ashwell Ashwell is an attractive, characterful village in a landscape that is much more than simply a beautiful setting for the buildings: the fields, paths and byways record the ways in which people have lived and worked here for several thousand years. Prehistoric Ashwell to the south By Roman times Ashwell Street and the Icknield Way of the parish were important routes. There were other tracks and paths, but they and many archaeological features are now only visible in aerial photographs; the Bronze Age barrow (burial mound) that stands at Highley Hill is one of many in the south parish. Southwest of the village, Arbury Banks is an Iron Age hillfort that was also used in the early Roman period. Another Iron Age settlement lay between the village and Ashwell End. Roman Ashwell In the Roman period Ashwell parish was not only a prosperous agricul Saxon Ashwell In the sixth and seventh centuries Ashwell was probably the centre of a large Anglo-Saxon estate. The modern village is largely the same as that planned and created early in the tenth century, The Saxon village was centred on a probably for Edward the Elder. marketplace in the area from Ashwell Springs to Gardiners Lane, bordered by High Street and Hodwell. The boundaries of individual properties, the burgess plots, set out at that time can still be traced today. The earliest reference to Ashwell is in the will of Aethelgifu who died around 990. By 1086 Ashwell was a major settlement, one of only five boroughs (market towns with some rights to self-defence) in Hertfordshire. Medieval Ashwell Ashwell flourished as a market town in the late Anglo-Saxon and early medieval periods, but as competition with Baldock (founded c. 1140) and other towns increased, Ashwell gradually fell behind. In the 1300s parish was still attracting people from as far afield France, and was able to build the parish church of St Mary , with the largest tower in Hertfordshire. Other late medieval buildings include the building that now houses Ashwell Museum and Guildhouse of the Brotherhood of St John the Baptist, both which faced marketplace. Kirby Manor Farmhouse, Bear House and Dixies Farm were the homes of prosperous farmers. religious centre. A shrine to the goddess Senuna stood at Ashwell Field suggest there was a villa there, and End. Finds in Pricem’s cropmarks show another villa to the west of Claybush Hill.