Ashby de la Zouch

An old high street still at work

The Bull's Head occupies a Grade II* listed sixteenth-century timber-framed building at 67 Market Street. Its exposed framing brings Ashby's older high street into view before the walk has properly begun.

Ashby de la Zouch is a market town in north-west Leicestershire where centuries of trade still show in the buildings along the old main street.

Market Street is the spine of the town and still works as a high street. W Taylor Butchers occupies number 8, while the covered Market Hall adds another place to browse. The historic sites south of the centre are close enough to shape the rest of a visit on foot.

The older buildings along Market Street make a clear route through the centre before turning towards the castle.

Ashby's independent taps and tables

The Tap at No. 76 occupies a Grade II listed former farmhouse on Market Street. Now a Tollgate Brewery micropub, it serves real ales and ciders, with pork pies at the bar.

At 106B Market Street, Brew is a bottle shop and tap room with street-food pop-ups and acoustic sessions. Its changing selection gives the high street another independent drinking stop.

Further along Market Street, the White Hart adds a seventeenth-century coaching inn to the town's pub run. Its bear-in-the-cellar story remains part of its local identity, and dogs are welcome throughout.

At the bottom of Market Street, the Grade II listed Shoulder of Mutton has a terracotta mantelpiece around carved timber panels, traditionally attributed to French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic period. Ashby was a town where prisoners were held on parole. The inn appears in butcher Samuel Adams's 1757 will and remained in his family until 1838.

From Market Street to Hastings Tower

Walk south from Market Street and you reach Ashby de la Zouch Castle. Visitors can climb the 24-metre Hastings Tower and explore the underground passage between the kitchen and tower, probably made during the Civil War siege. Historic steps and uneven ground require care, and wheelchair access is limited to the grounds.

William, Lord Hastings began transforming the existing manor in 1472–73 and obtained a licence to fortify it in 1474. His great tower was designed as a self-contained residence within a much larger scheme that included a 3,000-acre hunting park. Hastings was executed in 1483 with only about half his grand design realised.

Mary, Queen of Scots was briefly held at Ashby in November 1569 under Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. Later generations of the family received James I in 1617 and Charles I with Henrietta Maria in 1634. During the Civil War the castle became a Royalist base; its garrison surrendered on 28 February 1646 and marched out with trumpets, drums and colours. Demolition of the defences was directed later that year. Hastings Tower was partly demolished in 1648, probably with gunpowder. The ruins are now in English Heritage's care.

Monuments, spa grounds and a forest remade

Beside the castle, Grade I listed St Helen's Church has a fourteenth-century core and an outstanding group of Hastings family monuments. Its south chapel holds the alabaster tomb of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, and his wife. A wall monument to the 9th Earl was designed by William Kent and carved by Joseph Pickford; Michael Rysbrack made the figure of the earl's widow, Selina. The church also preserves a rare wooden finger pillory.

Between the historic centre and the ruins lie the Bath Grounds, parkland created for visitors to the Ivanhoe Baths. The grounds remain a link between Ashby's spa history and its castle.

The manor of Ascebi appears in the Domesday survey of 1086. It later passed from the Earls of Leicester to the Breton le Zouch family, whose name means 'stock' or 'stem'. Their manor preceded Lord Hastings's building work, and parts of it may survive within the later castle.

Ashby sits in the National Forest, where new woodland has reshaped former industrial and agricultural land. Hicks Lodge, once a coal mining site, now has a Forestry England trail centre and café. Walkers can take the approximately 2 km shared-use circuit around the lake; the separate Shell Brook trail is for mountain bikes only. The National Forest Way passes through Ashby, and its 7.5-mile Stage 5 heads towards Ticknall through the Calke landscape.

Trails, nearby landmarks and the way home

At Smisby, Bluebell Arboretum and Nursery offers a nine-acre woodland garden of unusual trees and shrubs. The nursery began in 1979 beside the Bluebell pub in Blackfordby, which gave it its name. Grass paths can be difficult in wet or frozen weather.

Calke Abbey is the National Trust's 'un-stately home', where peeling paint and abandoned rooms tell the story of a country house in decline. House admission is separate from a park-and-garden visit. At Moira Furnace, the nineteenth-century ironworks museum stands beside the Ashby Canal; heritage boat trips run on selected dates.

Ashby has no passenger railway station. Burton-on-Trent, about nine miles from the castle, is a rail approach for visitors continuing by road.

The walk back through the centre follows the street linking shops and pubs with the historic sites to the south. Ashby's compact layout makes an evening meal a natural end to a day among ruins and forest paths.