ASHLEY, a parish in the district of Market-Drayton, and county of Stafford; 4 miles SW of Whitmore r. station, 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. Acres, 2,860. Real property, £5,308. Pop., 870. Houses, 195. The property is much subdivided. There is a Roman camp on a site 803 feet high. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £316.* Patron, Mrs. Kinnersley, two turns, and H.Meynall Ingram, Esq., one turn. The church is very good, has a font given by a soldier of the Black Prince, and was enlarged by a chapel which contains handsome monuments of the Kinnersleys. There are chapels for Independents and Roman Catholics, and charities £22.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))