The Head Offices of Ashfield District Council are located on Urban Road in the town centre.

[1] Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530, travelled through Sutton in Ashfield having been recalled to London by King Henry VIII, before he stayed at nearby Kirkby Hardwick.

However the closure of the coal mines in the 1980s and early 1990s led to a major slump in the local economy, and the area then suffered a high level of socio-economic depression.

[5] The town centre underwent further upgrading, starting in late 2014 and 2015 to include the demolition of the old Co-Operative foodstore and county library with surrounding pedestrian plaza, to be rebuilt with a Morrisons store.

Local politics were dominated by the Labour Party for much of the 20th century; however, Ashfield attracted media attention in the late 1970s with a shock by-election win for the Conservatives.

The town's most famous historical resident is Harold Larwood; the England cricketer who was born in Nuncargate in 1904, best known for his bodyline bowling in the Ashes Test series of 1932–33.

This is the remains of a thirteenth-century village cross in dressed stone, and is a listed structure and designated ancient monument.