The Carington Arms has a skittle alley. This is worth mentioning early because it tells you most of what you need to know about Ashby Folville — it's the kind of village where the pub still has a skittle alley, and where that skittle alley recently hosted a sit-down lunch for fifty-five people, which is quite possibly more than the village's permanent population.
The pub is a free house on the bank of a small stream, southwest of Melton Mowbray. It was originally thatched, rebuilt in 1892, and renamed from The Royal Oak to The Carington Arms three years later, after the Smith-Carington family who took over the estate. CAMRA lists it. Dogs and walkers are welcome. There's a beer garden to the side.
The menu is broader than you'd expect. The bar runs from fish and chips and scampi with homemade chips to steak and Stilton pie, and there's a full restaurant menu alongside it. The chicken tikka burger comes with oven-roasted tikka, paprika mayo, and crispy onion bhaji rings in a toasted bun. There's a lamb burger with onion bhaji topping, Punjab chicken, venison that the reviews single out specifically for the head chef's preparation. Curry nights feature butter chicken and aubergine dishes. Sunday lunches run all day. The apple crumble comes with custard, as it should.
Outside the pub, the village is small and quiet. Horse chestnut trees. A cricket green. A stream. No shops — Ashby Folville was merged into the parish of Gaddesby in 1936, and anything you need beyond a pint requires a short drive to Melton Mowbray via the A607. There's no railway station.
For walking, the Leicestershire Round long-distance path comes through here and on through Thorpe Satchville. The countryside is gently rolling Melton district farmland, and the Burrough Hills — an ancient ironstone ridge and hillfort — sit close enough for a day's walk with proper views across the county.
St Mary the Virgin is Grade I listed, thirteenth century and later, with notable medieval stonework. It also contains the reputed tomb of Sir Eustace Folville, which is where the village's history takes a turn.
The Folvilles were not a respectable family. Eustace de Folville and his brothers ran what amounted to a criminal gang across the East Midlands during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III — theft, kidnap, extortion, murder. Their most notable achievement was the murder of Sir Roger de Beler, a Baron of the Exchequer, in January 1326. The brothers fled to Paris. When Isabella and Mortimer invaded and Edward III took the throne, the Folvilles were pardoned. The Folville Cross is said to mark the spot where de Beler was killed.
They flitted in and out of outlawry for years. Scholars at Cambridge have published papers on the family's crimes, and their exploits are thought to have fed into the Robin Hood ballad tradition. Of the brothers, only Richard — who was vicar of Teigh — met a violent end, beheaded in his own churchyard.
The placename itself comes from Fulk de Folville, who held the lordship from at least 1137. By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the settlement had twenty-four villagers, three smallholders, two slaves, a priest, forty acres of meadow, and a mill valued at four shillings. The whole place was held by Countess Judith.
Nine centuries on, the pub still stands, the church still stands, and the cricket green is still there. The Folvilles are in the ground.
