[Illustration] This is the only remaining branch of the old
Lancashire family of Assheton, originally seated at
Assheton-under-Lyne, and of whom the Asshetons of Middleton and of
Great Lever, both Baronets, represented the elder lines. The present
family descend from Radcliffe Assheton, second son of Ralph
Assheton, of Great Lever, born in 1582.
Downham appears to have come into the family in the seventeenth
century.
See Whitaker's Whalley, p. 299 and p. 300, for the curious journal
of Nicholas Assheton, of Downham, Esq. 1617-18, since published
entire as vol. xiv. of the series of the Chetham Society, 1848. For
Assheton of Ashton-under-Lyne, Baines's Lancashire, ii. 532, and
Collectanea Topog. et Genealog. vii. 12; for Ashton of Lever and
Whalley, Baines, iii. 190.
ARMS.--_Argent, a mullet pierced sable_.
Present Representative, Ralph Assheton, Esq.