ASHWELL is a village of considerable size on the Cambridgeshire border.
The village is 2½ miles N.W. from Ashwell Station, G.N.R. The parish is
very ancient, and is believed to have been the site of a British
settlement and of a Roman station. The former theory is considered
proved by the existing entrenchments, S.W. from the village, called
Arbury Banks; the latter theory is supported by the fact that very many
Roman relics, especially coins, have been discovered in the
neighbourhood. That it was formerly a place of importance has been
mentioned in the Introduction (Section V.); it was a town in Norman
times, and held four fairs each year. The Rhee, a tributary of the Cam,
rises in this village, at a spot surrounded by ash trees, and to this
fact the parish is thought to owe its name. When Sir H. Rider Haggard
was at Ashwell recently he was unable to say much for its agricultural
prosperity and outlook; but in Chauncy's day the district produced "all
sorts of excellent Grain, especially Barley, which has greatly
encouraged the trade of Malting in this Borrough". The same writer
mentions the stone quarry, from which he tells as that several
neighbouring churches had been built or repaired. The Church of St. Mary
the Virgin is mostly E.E. and is conspicuous for its spire-topped
western tower, 176 feet high, being equal to the length of the church.
Note (1) the large ambry in the S. aisle, once the lady-chapel, where is
also a fragmentary reredos; (2) the curious inscriptions on the inner
side of the tower walls, mostly undecipherable, one of which refers to
the plague that attacked the town in the fourteenth century; (3) the
really fine oaken pulpit, dating from the year 1627. There was formerly
a small monastic house in the town, a cell to Westminster Abbey. From
the village it is an open, breezy walk N. to Ashwell Common or S.E. to
Ashwell Field, between the village and the station.

ASPENDEN (1 mile S.W. from Buntingford Station, G.E.R.) may be reached