Ashby St Ledgers is a village in the West Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England. The post town is Rugby in Warwickshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 173. The Manor House is famous for being a location for the planning of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. As of 2023, the property had been restored and can be rented for a fee.
Location
The nearest large towns are Rugby, north west, and Daventry, south. The A5 road, following the course of the Roman Watling Street, passes about a mile east. Rugby has the nearest railway station on the West Coast Main Line, with trains to London Euston and several other parts of the country. It is about north via the A5 to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 18 and about south to junction 16.
History
Ashby St Ledgers was first mentioned in the Domesday Book, which gave the place name as Ascebi ("ash tree settlement"). In Norman times, a church was erected on the site, dedicated to Saint Leodegarius, from whom the modern-day name is derived.
Notable buildings
Manor House
The manor was given as a gift to Hugh de Grandmesnil by William the Conqueror and passed to various other occupants until 1375, when it passed into the Catesby family and became their principal residence.
In 1268 the manor passed to Edmund Crouchback as William de Ashby had murdered a man in Catesby Priory.
The manor was briefly confiscated after the attainder and execution of William Catesby, one of Richard III's counsellors, after the defeat at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, but was later returned to his son, George. It passed down the male line to Robert Catesby's father, Sir William Catesby, who managed to hold on to the property in spite of massive debts caused by recusancy fines and years of imprisonment for his brave adherence to the Roman Catholic faith.
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File:Gunpow1.jpg|thumb|left|A contemporaneous engraving of the conspirators (detail). By Crispijn van de Passe the Elder. <small>Use a cursor to explore</small>
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The manor's central location was convenient to the houses of the Catesbys' many friends and relations, which supposedly made Ashby St Ledgers a type of 'Command Centre' during the planning of the Gunpowder Plot. In the room above the Gatehouse, with its privacy from the main house and clear view of the surrounding area, Robert Catesby, his servant Thomas Bates and the other conspirators are said to have planned a great deal of the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby was killed with some other plotters at Holbeche House, whereas his servant was executed in the following January.
Following Robert Catesby's death in 1605, the manor was confiscated by the crown as the property of a traitor. However, Lady Anne Catesby had a life interest in a large portion of the property, given her by her husband at their marriage. This preserved a portion of the estate from alienation, and though an attempt was made in 1618 to reverse that, the settlement remained. In 1612, it was purchased by Bryan I'Anson (1560-1634), Sheriff of the City of London. He was the father of Sir Bryan I'Anson, 1st Bt., of Ashby St Ledgers; Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I of England. In 1703, Esther I'Anson (Sir Bryan's elder brother John's great-granddaughter) sold the manor to Joseph Ashley, a London draper. When his great nephew, also called Joseph Ashley, died in 1798, the manor passed to his daughter, Mary, who was the wife of Sir Joseph Senhouse. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Joseph Pocklington in 1835, and the manor remained in their family until 1903, when it was sold to Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne,
Viscount Wimborne's grandson and namesake, Ivor Guest, 3rd Viscount Wimborne, sold the estate in 1976. It passed through a series of owners, including the British Airways Pension Fund, who separated the manor house from the rest of the estate. In 1998 the 3rd Viscount's son Ivor Guest, 4th Viscount Wimborne, bought the house, which had fallen into neglect, but the house was restored by the 4th Viscount Wimborne at the start of the 21st century. It will continue to be run as an agricultural business, but governed by its Rural Directorate.
Other buildings
The church is dedicated to Saint Leodegarius and has wall paintings showing the Passion of Christ ca. 1500, with 18 scenes, and the flagellation of St Margaret, ca. 1325.
The village has a pub, the Olde Coach House Inn.
Ashby Lodge, a house built by Londoner George Arnold in the early 1720s on the edge of the manor estate, was demolished in the 1920s.