Map - Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Ashby de la Zouch, sometimes hyphenated as Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and shortened locally to Ashby, is a market town and civil parish in the North West Leicestershire district of Leicestershire, England. The town is near to the Derbyshire and Staffordshire borders. Its 2001 census population of 11,410 rose to 12,370 in 2011. The castle in the town was an important fort in the 15th–17th centuries. In the 19th century the town's main industries were ribbon manufacture, coal mining, and brickmaking.

The civil parish includes the hamlets of Shellbrook to the west and Boundary to the north-west. Swadlincote, Burton upon Trent, Melbourne and Coalville are within 10 mi, with Derby 11+1/2 mi due north. Ashby lies at the heart of The National Forest, about 24 mi south of the Peak District National Park, on the A42 between Tamworth and Nottingham. In 2018, Ashby Market Street was named "Best Shopping Experience", and in 2019 it made the final of the rising-star category for UK high streets.

The town was known as Ashby in 1086. This is a word of Anglo-Danish origin, meaning "Ash-tree farm" or "Ash-tree settlement". The Norman French name extension dates from the years after the Norman conquest of England, when Ashby became a possession of the La Zouche family during the reign of Henry III.

Ashby de la Zouch Castle was built in the 12th century. The town and castle came into the possession of the Hastings family in 1464 and William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings enhanced its fortifications from 1473. In the English Civil War, the town was one of the Cavaliers' chief garrisons under the control of Colonel Henry Hastings, 1st Baron Loughborough and commander of the North Midlands Army. When the town fell after a long siege in March 1646, it was counted a great relief to the surrounding towns and villages.

Many of the buildings in Market Street, the town's main thoroughfare, are timber framed. Most of this structure is hidden by later brick facades. The Bull's Head public house retains its original Elizabethan half-timbering, although most of this was plastered over some years ago and can no longer be seen from the street. A short distance further down Market Street is a shop, currently occupied as a LOROS Charity Shop, which retains its original Elizabethan timbers in full street view. Regency buildings are also standing in this street. Bath Street has a row of Classical-style houses called Rawdon Terrace, dating from the time of the 1820s, when the town was a spa destination.