Our Clergy
At the back of the church hangs a wooden board which lists the incumbents of St Helen's Church from
1200 to the present day. It isn't completely accurate in the very early days of the church, but we are gradually learning more about the priests who have served the town of Ashby over the past eight centuries.
The earliest records of the
'Vicaria de Esseby' (Vicarage of Ashby) are written on rolls of parchment, now in the care of Lincolnshire Archives. An entry dated around
1220 notes the presentation of Reginald to the Vicarage in Ashby. He had a stipend of 20 shillings a year and fodder for his palfrey (horse), which he needed to travel to synod and chapter meetings.
Between
1144 and the dissolution of the monasteries in the
1530s, St Helen's Church in Ashby and the Chapel of Blackfordby were administered by Lilleshall Abbey in Shropshire, having been gifted to them by Philip de Belmeis, then Lord of the Manor of Ashby.
The town was in the Diocese of Lincoln from
1070-1837. It then passed into the Diocese of Peterborough from
1837-1926 and the Diocese of Leicester from its inception in
1926.
These pages tell the stories of some of the priests who have served Ashby over the centuries. As research is ongoing, we will be adding information as we discover it.