Nº.779 - Founded 1859

The earliest Freemasons' Lodges in Ashby-de-la-Zouch owed their existence to an unlikely source, French prisoners of war living on parole in the town during the Napoleonic Wars, with Lodges recorded as active in 1810 and 1814. English Freemasons were present in the area too, with records from Tyrian Lodge 253 in Derby showing several Ashby and Coleorton residents being initiated there between 1796 and 1814.

Ashby's first permanent Lodge, Ivanhoe 631, was established in 1836 but proved short-lived, holding no meetings after 1841 and being erased from the roll in 1851. Freemasonry was revived in the town through the determined efforts of Earl Howe, the Provincial Grand Master, supported by the 9th Earl Ferrers and Edward Mammatt, a former Ivanhoe member. A warrant was granted in February 1859 for Ferrers and Ivanhoe No. 1081, meeting monthly in the Town Hall. The Lodge's early years were marked by misfortune, Earl Ferrers died before its consecration in October 1859, and Mammatt, installed as first Worshipful Master, followed just six months later. Under the steady guidance of Deputy Provincial Grand Master W. Bro. William Kelly, however, the Lodge went on to prosper. Its number was revised to 779 in 1863, and the Lodge has since marked many proud milestones in the life of the town, including presenting a pulpit to St Helen's Church in 1879 and laying, with full Masonic honours, the foundation stone of the Cottage Hospital on Leicester Road in 1897.

By the 1970s membership had reached one hundred, prompting the granting of a warrant in 1975 for a second Ashby Lodge, Hastings 8695. Both Lodges continued to meet in the Town Hall, as Lodge 779 had done for over a century, before moving in 1981 into their own Masonic Hall in Lower Church Street, a fitting home for a Lodge now well into its second century.

Life beyond the Lodge