{"id":66,"date":"2021-01-30T11:49:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-30T11:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/?p=66"},"modified":"2022-01-16T16:22:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T16:22:32","slug":"w-g-grace-at-ashley-grange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/2021\/01\/30\/w-g-grace-at-ashley-grange\/","title":{"rendered":"W.G. Grace at Ashley Grange"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I made an interesting discovery yesterday that relates to my previous blog post<\/a> about W.G. Grace in Ashley Down in Bristol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 1890s Grace lived in a large house just off Ashley Down Road, called Ashley Grange. From early maps it looks as though the house was previously Ashley Farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house was demolished in 1936, but the map below shows where it was when Grace lived there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map<\/a>
Map showing the site of Ashley Grange about 1900 – KnowYourPlace Bristol<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the sources of information for my previous blog post was a book called W.G. Grace – In The Steps Of A Legend<\/a> by Anthony Meredith. A line from the book about Ashley Grange seemed to throw down a challenge:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA local historian has written of one small relic, the name of the house \u2018on a block of stone near the base of a silver birch tree\u2019, but, if it still survives, it frustratingly eluded us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Where was this block of stone? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I’d seen a silver birch in the grounds of Ashley House, which still stands and is now used as a school. But I couldn’t find any trace of the stone there. I searched around the garages that now stand where Ashley Grange once stood. Still no sign of the elusive stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then yesterday I was walking down a lane on the other side of Ashley Down Road, when I noticed a large block of stone, newly revealed by some enthusiastic cutting back of the undergrowth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There seemed to be some writing on it. I wonder…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So I hopped up onto the wall to take a closer look…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And there it was. Fading letters spelling the name of Grace’s house, ASHLEY GRANGE. The last remaining connection between the great man and Ashley Down, gathering moss in a local garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder what will happen to the stone. It seems a bit sad to let it lie there. 500 metres from its original site and 500 metres in the other direction to the County Ground, home to Gloucestershire Cricket<\/a> and spiritual home of WG Grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Gloucestershire CCC could move it inside the County Ground to preserve the link with the club’s founding father?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made an interesting discovery yesterday that relates to my previous blog post about W.G. Grace in Ashley Down in Bristol. During the 1890s Grace lived in a large house just off Ashley Down Road, called Ashley Grange. From early maps it looks as though the house was previously Ashley Farm. The house was demolished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,5,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashley-down","category-bristol","category-cricket","category-local-history","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalkboard.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}