The village's name means 'Asa's church' or 'Asi's church'. Settled successively since the
Iron Age the village was named after the site of the nearby church as 'Aas-kirk’, meaning Church by the Water. The village was recorded in the
Domesday Book of 1086 as
Asechirce, when the land was held mainly by Ascelin de Waterville, a Norman knight. Ownership of the land passed through the Dukes of Exeter in the 14th century with
Henry VII granting them to his mother
Lady Margaret Beaufort. On her death the two manors of Thorpe Waterville and Achurch remained the property of the Crown until
Henry VIII granted them to his illegitimate son
Henry FitzRoy.
Edward VI awarded the manors to
Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, and they remained in the possession of his descendants the Earls of Exeter, until 1773, when the estates were sold to Thomas Powys of Lilford. Thomas Powys’ grandson was raised to the peerage as the first
Lord Lilford in 1797. The neighbouring village of
Lilford was largely cleared in the 18th century to make way for a larger park for
Lilford Hall. In 1778 the parish of Lilford (also known as Lilford-cum-Wigsthorpe) was united for ecclesiastical purposes with Thorpe Achurch. Material from Lilford's demolished parish church was used both to restore the church at Achurch and to erect a
folly nearby. Although Lilford became part of the
ecclesiastical parish of Thorpe Achurch in 1778, it continued to exist as a parish for civil purposes, including the collection of
tithes and administering the
poor laws. ==Governance==