Ashley 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

East Cambridgeshire East Cambridgeshire (locally known as East Cambs) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England. Its council is based in the cathedral city of Ely. The district also contains the towns of Littleport and Soham and surrounding rural a ...

district of

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, England, about east of Newmarket. The modern village consists of the two ancient parishes of Ashley and Silverley. Ashley covers and in the 2011 census had a population of 749. Ashley is in the electoral area of

Cheveley The village of Cheveley is situated in the county of Cambridgeshire and lies about four miles east-south-east of the market town of Newmarket. The population of the civil parish was 1,990 at the 2011 Census. Cheveley falls within the local ...

ward.

History

Ashley and Silverley were both mentioned 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. In 1086 Silverley had a total population of 22 households and had land for 8 plough teams. The Domesday Book does not give the population of Ashley, but Ashley only had land for 4 plough teams. In 1086, the tenant-in-chief in both Ashley and Silverley was Aubrey de Vere. In the 13th century, the manors of both Ashley and Silverley were owned by the Knights

Hospitallers The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town in north-west Wiltshire, England. It lies north-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, west of London and is near the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon, ...

. Silverley was the larger of the two villages and so the villages at that time were known as Silverley cum Ashley. However, since the Hospitaller's manor house was situated in Ashley, by the end of the 13th century the villages became known as Ashley cum Silverley. Following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, the Crown gave the manor at Ashley to Edward North of

Kirtling Kirtling, together with Kirtling Green and Kirtling Towers, is a scattered settlement in the south-eastern edge of the English county of Cambridgeshire. It forms a civil parish with the nearby village of Upend to its north. The population of the ...

. The ecclesiastical parishes of St Mary in Ashley and of All Saints in Silverley were united c.1550. There was a church dedicated to St Mary in the village of Ashley by the 13th century that was abandoned in the late 16th century and was in ruins by 1705. In Silverley there was a church dedicated to All Saints by 1447 that was also abandoned in the 16th century and by 1752 only the tower and some bits of wall remained. The tower remains to the present day. There was a Hospittaler chapel in the village of Ashley that was dedicated to St. John and from c. 1550, this chapel was used as the parish church for Ashley and Silverley. Following the opening of the new parish church in 1845, the chapel was then used as a school; it was demolished c.1956. A new parish church dedicated to Holy Trinity was opened in 1845; in 1872 when it was enlarged and then dedicated to St Mary. There are some pictures and a description of the church at the Cambridgeshire Churches website.St Mary's page at the Cambridgeshire Churches website
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Transport

Ashley lies on the B1063. (4.1 mi) away from the a14, making it easier to commute to the nearby larger settlement of Bury St Edmunds. The nearest railway station is away in Newmarket. The

Icknield Way Path The Icknield Way Path or Icknield Way Trail is a long distance footpath and riding route in East Anglia, England. The ancient Icknield Way itself is unique among long-distance trails because it can claim to be ‘the oldest road in Britain’ ...

passes through the village on its journey from

Ivinghoe Beacon Ivinghoe Beacon is a prominent hill and landmark in Buckinghamshire, England, 233 m (757 ft) above sea level in the Chiltern Hills, close to Ivinghoe and Aldbury. Dunstable, Berkhamsted and Tring are nearby. The Beacon lies within t ...

in Buckinghamshire to

Knettishall Heath Knettishall Heath is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Knettishall in Suffolk, England. A larger area of 176 hectares is the Knettishall Heath Nature Reserve, which is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Despite its n ...

in Suffolk. Th
Icknield Way Trail
a multi-user route for walkers, horse riders and off-road cyclists also passes through the village.

Facilities

By 1764 there were two public houses, The Crown and The Plough. The Crown is no longer open as a pub (closed during covid) but in the 1980s The Plough become The Old Plough and is now a restaurant. There is a village store on the High Street and a village hall, called the Ashley Pavilion, which is adjacent to the recreation ground and children's play area.

References

External links

*
Ashley village web site
{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire East Cambridgeshire District