England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Ashby St Ledgers St Leodegarius

The Parish

The parish of Ashby St Ledgers lies in the extreme west of Northamptonshire separated from neighbouring Warwickshire only by a few hundred metres of Barby parish. Ashby St Ledgers is located about 3 miles north of the market town of Daventry and sits immediately east of the A361 road which here performs as a link road connecting Daventry with the A5. That much replaced route follows the Roman Watling Street and that ancient way still forms the boundaries of many parishes in this area. Ashby St Ledgers is an estate village dominated by the grounds of its manor house which lies to the east of most of the village in a parkland setting, the house was the former home of the Catesby family, one of whose members was a prominent conspirator of the Gunpowder Plot. The house shows fabric across 3 centuries of expansion including work by the legendary Lutyens. Like most parishes in this area Ashby St Ledgers would have primarily been a farming parish, in this area a mixed regime offering both arable & pastoral methods in almost equal halves. Modern developments surround the parish, it sits just over a mile west of the famous Watford Gap, a low pass which is followed, in turn, by the Roman's Watling Street, the Grand Union Canal, the London to Birmingham railway line and finally the modern M1 motorway, to add to these routes the M45 motorway peels off to Ashby St Ledgers' north too. Ashby St Ledgers is drained southeastwards by one of the headwaters of the infant River Nene, once collected into a riverine thoroughfare it heads off mainly eastwards on a long journey to the North Sea arriving through The Wash. Ashby St Ledgers is sited at around 140 metres above the sea in gently rolling countryside where a local high point of 177 metres at Ashby Grange is the highest ground for some distance. Covering close to 1,900 acres Ashby St Ledgers was fairly typically sized for its area, within that acreage would have been supported a population of around 250 parishioners. In Domesday time Ashby St Ledgers was a holding of Hugh de Grandmesnil and an equally rural and tranquil holding too, its 8 ploughs and a small meadow being its only assets for 234 households.

The Church

St Leodegarius' church sits at the eastern end of the village on the fringes of the estate, St Leodegarius was a martyred Burgundian Bishop of the 7th century, when Autun in France was besieged he gave himself up to save the citizens being tortured an eventually murdered. The church is one, as Pevsner puts it, which has its fabric over-shadowed by its interior fittings and decoration. The building is a product of the great church-building era of the 14th century and is made in a mixture of the early Decorated style and also the later Perpendicular. Its western tower is the best Decorated piece along with the northern chapel whilst the Perpendicular style is shown well in the 4-bay arcades with their octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. Documentary evidence in the form of will donations indicate that the nave is from a later period with gifts covering the late 15th century from c1470 to 1490. That date is coincident with the age of much of the preserved interior fittings that grace this rather average church. The 15th century rood screen is complimented by similarly 15th century benches. The church's set of decorative wall painting, albeit rather faded today, is said by Pevsner to be one of the "most complete cycles in England of the Passion of Christ" and makes the church well worth a visit. The narrow lane which passes through the village performs a set of dog-leg turns around the borders of the estate and a roughly surfaced parking area sits outside the churchyard, which rather shyly hides behind fronting properties. Whilst the churchyard is clear of immediate obstacles it is rather compact and limiting in the ability to get back sufficient to encompass adequately the landscape view and thus restricting the photographer somewhat.