East Ilsley is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire.
It is situated at grid reference SU492811 in West Berkshire, north of Newbury very close to the A34 road which bypasses the village.
In 1620 East Ilsley was granted a charter to hold a sheep market in the village, this became the second largest sheep market, after Smithfield, London.
There is also a West Ilsley nearby.
Either West Ilsley or East Ilsley may have been the site of the Battle of Ashdown (Alfred the Great's victory against the Danes), the etymology of the name Ilsley is that it may be derived from Hilde-Laege which means "Place of Conflict."
Racehorses have been trained at East Ilsley for about 200 years .
Famous quotes containing the word east:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)