In 1851, an entry in the Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire recorded the hamlet of Little Onn, comprising 870 acres of land, 1½ miles south of Church Eaton and eight miles south-west of Stafford, as being ‘the sole property of Charles Ashton Esq, who has a pleasant seat here called Rye Hill House’. Now, after more than a century and a half of restoration, the present main house there, set in 28 acres, is for sale through the Midlands office of Fisher German and Peter James Property in Wolverhampton, at a guide price of £3.5 million.

(Image credit: Fisher German / Peter James Property)

Ashton inherited the estate when still a minor, following the death in 1844 of his father, whose family had made their fortune in the cotton mills of the North-West. His grandfather, James Ashton,

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