Regretfully, our football days are now mostly limited to watching matches in the pub rather than wheezing wobbily-legged around a pitch in all weathers. But there’s a definite exception to be made for Ashbourne, Derbyshire, which has held a two-day scrum of a football match every Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday since medieval times. ‘Unnecessary violence is frowned upon,’ runs one of the few rules for the Ashbourne Shrove-Tide match, which places it a step up from our hazy memories of childhood football.
If you’re visiting Ashbourne at another time of year, or limit your football these days to watching it on a screen indoors, the town is also known for its pubs: around one in every four buildings here is or was at one time a brewery or inn. Cheers!
More wholesomely, there’s an endless amount of things to do in and around Ashbourne if you want to stay outdoors/not risk your neck in a football game: book an Ashbourne campsite or holiday park to hike or bike the Tissington Trail starting from the north of the town, use it as a gateway to Dovedale and the Peak District, or hit the street theatre and events of the annual Ashbourne Festival.
