East Ilsley is a village and civil parish in the Berkshire Downs in West Berkshire, north of Newbury. The village is centred immediately east of the A34 dual carriageway which passes the length of the village from north to south. It has the vast majority of its buildings in a traditional clustered centre.
History
Hildersley
The parish was anciently called Hildersley, from Hildeslei in the Domesday Book, and is recorded in a medieval inscription in the church. West Ilsley was a hamlet in Ilsley. Ilsley has been attributed by antiquaries as a leading contender for the uncertain site of the Battle of Ashdown in 871 AD (Alfred the Great's victory against the Danes).
Sheep fair
In 1620 East Ilsley was granted a charter to hold a sheep fair, or market, in the village, however the fair had been informally held from the reign of Henry II. This became the second largest sheep fair in the country, after Smithfield, throughout the 19th century.
Shepherds and drovers would drive their sheep to the village, and stay overnight in one of at least 9 public houses until the fair in the morning. The chief fair took place annually on 1 August, with 80,000 sheep penned daily. By 1909 this had reduced to about 10,000 due to the agricultural depression.
Notable inhabitants
- John Hilsey, head of a Dominican Order and bishop of Rochester turned agent of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, was born here;
- Richard Wightwick, co-founder of Pembroke College, Oxford, rector.
Roads and footpaths
The Ridgeway long-distance footpath passes through a subway below the A34, approximately one mile north of the village.
Racehorse training
Racehorses have been trained at East Ilsley for about 200 years, as an offshoot from the economic centre of training in the United Kingdom and Ireland, ten miles west at Lambourn. Hugh Morrison trains racehorses at Summerdown, East Ilsley.
At Keats Gore, a mansion near East Ilsley, the celebrated racehorse Eclipse was foaled in 1764, and afterwards trained. He was later moved to Cannons Park near Edgware.