Ashley, Staffordshire
Historical Description
Ashley, a village and a parish in Staffordshire, 4 miles SW of Whitmore station on the L. & N.W.R., and 5 ENE of Market-Drayton. It contains the village of Ashley-Heath, and part of the hamlet of Hook-Gate, and has a post office under Market-Drayton; money order and telegraph office, Whitmore. Acreage, 2821; population, 797. There is a Roman camp on a site 803 feet high. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield; value, £430. The church is a fine edifice, in the Decorated style, with an embattled tower. It was restored in 1861, and was also enlarged by a chapel which contains handsome monuments of the Kinnersleys. There are chapels for Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Congregation-alists, and Primitive Methodists.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Staffordshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Ashley St. John the Baptist | |
| Hundred | Pirehill | |
| Poor Law union | Market-Drayton |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1551.
Findmypast, in association with the Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Ashley
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Baptist (parish church)
The church of St. John the Baptist, restored in 1861, is a building of stone in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, transept, nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 3 bells: the church was enlarged in 1861 by the erection of a chapel on the south side at the expense of the late Thomas Kinnersly esq. of Clough Hall; in this chapel are six beautifully sculptured marble monuments, by Chantrey, Noble, Ternough and other sculptors, to different members of the Kinnersly family: a lady chapel and vestry were added in 1910, and carved oak screens; choir stalls, and a reredos were placed in the chancel; a new organ was also provided, and the church reseated; the whole of the cost, amounting to over £7,000, was defrayed by the late Hon. Frederick George Lindley Meynell, of Hoar Cross (d. 1910): a monument was erected in 1910 in the lady chapel to the late Hugo Charles Meynell Ingram and Charlotte Elizabeth, his wife: on the east side of the chancel are some ancient monuments with effigies of the Lords Gerard of Bromley: there are 350 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Ashley from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Ashley (St. John the Baptist))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Staffordshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Ashley are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Staffordshire newspapers online:
- Staffordshire Advertiser
- Tamworth Herald
- Lichfield Mercury
- Staffordshire Sentinel
- Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser