Mears Ashby

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Mears Ashby is a village in the English county of Northamptonshire.

It is between the county town of Northampton and Wellingborough; administrativley it forms part of the borough of Wellingborough.

The 2001 census recorded its population as 442 of which 221 were male and 221 female.

[edit] Witchcraft

According to Westwood and Simpson in the their book, The Lore of the Land the county in general and Mears Ashby in particular has a long tradition of witchcraft and accustations of withcraft. In their book they recall that as late as 1785 an accused Witch, Sarah Bradshaw, was so accused. We learn from the Northampton Mercury on 1 August 1785 that:

"Thursday last, a poor woman, named Sarah Bradshaw of Mears Ashby...who was accused by some of her neighbours of being a witch, in order to prove her innocence, submitted to the ignomony of being dipped (on a ducking-stool); when she immediately sunk to the bottom of the pond; which was deemed an incontestable proof that she was no witch!"