PRN 64088 Ashby de la Launde is first documented in the Domesday Book, and was known at that time as 'Aschebi'. The name is possibly derived from the Old Danish personal name Aski and the Old Danish -by meaning 'a farmstead, a village'. Alternatively the meaning might be 'the farmstead village where ash-trees grow', the first being the place name element then being Old Norse askr 'an ash-tree'. The affix in Ashby de la Launde is from the family who held a manor here, note William de la Laund' 1327.{1} Ashby de la Launde is found in the Wappentake of Flaxwell, and at the time of Domesday land in Aschebi was owned by Colsuain and Ralf of Pagenel. For Colsuain, 'In Aschebi Outi and Aschil had three and a half carucates of land (assessed) to the geld. There is land for four teams. Colsuan has one and a half teams there (in demesne), and twelve villeins and two sokemen on one bovate of land and one bordar with two teams, and fifteen acres of meadow.' For Ralph of Pagenel, 'Merlosuen had six carucates of land (assessed) to the geld. There is land for six teams. Ralf has two teams there (in demesne), and seventeen sokemen and two villeins and two bordars with eight teams, and fifty acres of meadow'.{2} Around 1220 the Norman Knight Willam de Ashebie had taken residence in the village and had built some form of manorial ‘Hall’. In the reign of King John we know that William d’Aschebi gave lands to the Knights Templar to create the Temble Bruer Preceptory and founded the village church. Early references are made to William de Aschebi, a leading member of the Knights Templar, securing his position by land gifts around Aschebi. A succession of de Aschebi’s carried on the Templar connection. The Lay Subsidy of 1334 lists the parish's wealth as £3 and 3s.{3} Medieval cropmark crofts have been recorded and interpreted as possible settlement by the National Mapping Programme (PRN62803).{4} The Diocesan Returns of 1563 list the parish's population as 18 households.{5} By the late 17th-early 18th century there were 11 families in the parish, decreasing to 8.{6} In 1801 the population of the parish is listed as 127 rising to 210 by 1901.{7} Ashby de la Launde, a pleasant scattered village, on a broken declivity, seven miles north of Sleaford, has in its fertile parish 170 souls and 2519 acres of land, all the property and manor of the Rev.J.W.King, B.D., of Ashby Hall. The manor had in its name from the families of Essheby and De La Launde, who held it till the reign of Henry VI. It has belonged to the family of King since the reign of Henry VIII, and one of them built the present Hall, in 1595 (PRN 64076).{8}