Ashby Parva is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the Harborough district of

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire ...

, England. The parish had a population of 211 according to the 2001 census, increasing to 233 at the 2011 census. The village is in the west of the district, west of the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass, which ...

, and nearby

Ullesthorpe Ullesthorpe is a small village and civil parish situated in the Harborough district in southern Leicestershire. Ullesthorpe is noted for its historic background with a mill, disused railway station and traces of a medieval settlement evident o ...

, Leire and

Bitteswell Bitteswell is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Bitteswell with Bittesby, in the Harborough district of Leicestershire in England. It is situated just north of the town of Lutterworth, and in the 2001 census had ...

. It is about 3 miles away from

Lutterworth Lutterworth is a market town and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, close to the borders with Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. It is located north of Rugby ...

. The village was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. Ashby Parva is the home of the newly built Midlands Roller Arena, which used to host Major League Roller Hockey Europe competitions in the UK. It is the only purpose built

inline hockey Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The spo ...

arena in the UK that is solely for the use of this one sport and it is used by thousands of athletes every year. The village's name means 'farm/settlement by the ash trees'. 'Parva' is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

word for small.

The Civil War

During the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

parliamentary troops from

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avo ...

garrisons visited Ashby Parva and the surrounding villages in Guthlaxton Hundred, stealing horses and availing themselves of "free quarter". In May 1642 a hundred men from the Coventry garrison stayed three hours at Ashby Parva to avail themselves of "meat, drink and provinder". In 1646 the inhabitants claimed ten pounds from the Warwickshire County Committee for a visit by Captain Wells and sixty men from Warwick in 1644, during which the troops quartered for two days and consumed "diet and horsemeat" worth an estimated ten pounds.

References

External links

* Villages in Leicestershire Civil parishes in Harborough District {{Leicestershire-geo-stub