all saints church, aughton

Sir Richard and Lady Margaret Aske (Negative Image for Clarity)

On the right of the chancel floor are some monumental brasses, laid in All Saints Church around 1466, they are set into Egglestone marble, and bear the effigies of Sir Richard Aske of Aughton, who died on the 12th October 1460, on 'The Feast of St.Wifred the Bishop', and his wife Margaret, who died 5 years later on the same date, and was the daughter of Sir Robert Ughred of Kexby, Lincolnshire. Sir Richard was the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Aske, and she was the daughter of Judge Gascoigne.The engravings are a very fine example of a style centred around York between 1460 and 1485, a feature of this period of local brasses are the elegantly designed knights with their elongated bodies.

The brasses comprise of two full length figures joined at the base by an inscription.
The lower half of Margarets effigy and the right side of the inscription are now missing, as are the four heraldic shields at each corner of the stone. These were possibly stolen or mutilated during the period of the Civil War, as the puritans objected to such idolatrous monuments in churches, and many of the countrys' ancient carvings and brasses were vandalised.

The remaining plaque reads ...

Here lie Richard Aske esquire ....
Margaret his wife, daughter of a certain ...
they died on the 12th Oct in the year ...