The Ash Path

The origin of The Ash Path is to be found in the minutes of a Nonington Vestry meeting of 1883.

From the Nonington Parish Vestry minutes:-March 13th 1883.”Mr. Plumptre proposes to give a public footpath from Hanging Hill gate (at the southern end of Nonington Cricket Ground) to the North Corner of North field which shall be continued across Parsonage Field to Nonington School (this footpath is now known as the Ash Path), doing away with the present footpath over Parsonage Field ( which ran from the garden of what is now Green Gables in Holt Street, across North Field and then Parsonage Field to the school) providing the path is not used as a bridleway and re-directing the present footpath from Holt Street to Church Street at the point of departure from Holt Street Road to start 100 yards eastward (to its present position across North Field to the top of the hill where it joins Ash Path)“.

The footpath was surfaced with ashes from the fires at Fredville given by Mr. Plumptre,  and this is is the origin of the name “The Ash Path”. Subsequent parish council minutes (see below) record that his gift was repeated whenever the path needed repairing