Ashford is a town in Spelthorne, in Surrey, England, including some areas within the London Borough of Hounslow.

[2] Ashford consists of relatively low density low- and medium-rise buildings, none of them being high rise.

Ashford Common has a parade of shops and is a more residential ward that includes part of Queen Mary Reservoir and all of its related water treatment works.

The town is surrounded by some areas of green space including The Princes Club, Bedfont Lakes and Shortwood Common.

Ashford is in the almost flat alluvial plain formed by the historic courses of the River Thames[3] on fairly fertile but gravelly soil[4] in centuries past covered by deciduous forest for wood gathering, with clearings of meadow for pasture and to a lesser extent arable farming to supply the London market; sheep grazing continues today around the reservoirs.

The extreme west is Shortwood Common, partly converted to a recreation ground, Ashford Park School, a cemetery.

Most of the land is devoted to suburban and low-rise urban housing[5] – as well as recreational areas, green belt in part of the Bedfont/Feltham fringe exists in the form of meadows used for walking, horse grazing and equestrianism around Feltham Young Offenders' Institution.

A few parks such as the Ashford Reservoirs or Spelthorne Park are remnants of Ashford Common which give the eastern part of the town a reminder of its past status as a grazing common; these include recreation grounds such as Thames Water-sponsored Spelthorne Sports Club and the BP recreation ground.

[7][8] Bronze Age artefacts have been found in Ashford (at 51.432708N, 0.485174W) giving rise to the name Bronzefield and a henge may have been present in that period.

[9] Ashford appears on the Middlesex Domesday map as Exeforde, held by Robert, Count of Mortain.

Its building north of Ashford railway station is Gothic Revival, designed by Henry Clutton.

A property developer, Inland Homes plc, has since acquired the former grammar school buildings in Church Road.

In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, Middlesex County Council was abolished and the urban district was transferred to Surrey.

It was sited some yards west of Ashford's earlier parish church of St Michael, parts of which were Norman.

[citation needed] William Butterfield designed St Matthew's in a Gothic Revival style.

[24] St Hilda's original design included a spire that would have been one of the most significant landmarks in the area,[citation needed] but it was never built.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Michael in Fordbridge Road was begun in 1927 and the uncompleted building was consecrated in 1928.

[31] The main street, Church Road, has local businesses, including Co-op, Tesco Express, Costa Coffee, Sainsbury's, several estate agents, three funeral directors, and several places to eat.

Main dealers of Ford, Citroën and formerly Suzuki are along the town's outlying dual carriageway roads.

The town previously had multiple high street banks including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander, however all of these have since closed.

The Barclays branch located on Church Road was the site of an attempted robbery in June 2010, when a man armed with an imitation gun and a fake bomb took multiple hostages, demanding £800,000 and a helicopter.