ASHFORD, a chapelry in the parish of BAKEWELL, hundred of HIGH-PEAK, county of DERBY, 2 miles (N.W. by W.) from Bakewell, containing 728 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, endowed with £200 private benefaction, £800 royal bounty, and £200 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the Vicar of Bakewell. The chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built in 1247. There is a place of worship for General Baptists; another, originally founded by the Nonconformist divine, William Bagshaw, styled "the Apostle of the Peak", has been subsequently used by different sects.

The village lies in a vale watered by the river Wye, over which are three stone bridges. Mills for sawing and polishing marble, being the first established for that purpose in England, were erected on its banks in 1786, and are supplied from the celebrated quarries of black marble in the vicinity. Ashford is in the honour of Tutbury, duchy of Lancaster, and within the jurisdiction, of a court of pleas held at Tutbury every third Tuesday, for the recovery of debts under 40s. A school for poor children was founded by William Harris, in 1631, and endowed with £6. 13. 4, per annum, to which Thomas Roose and the Rev. Samuel Evatt added £1 per annum each. Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, resided in a mansion near the church, of which there are no vestiges, except the moat that surrounded it.