From "A History of Ashford" by Arthur Ruderman:

     "Quarter Sessions also dealt with trading cases. In 1614 John Harker of Ashford was charged with 'exercising the trade of a miller, and not having been apprenticed.' Three months later Harker was making the same charge against Peter Cole of Ashford. At the same time Peter Cole was alleging that Edward Ellis of Great Chart was engrossing grain, that is, attempting to buy the whole or a substantial part of the supply, in order to sell it at higher prices. Obviously there was considerable rivalry and animosity between the millers of this time."
     "During the Commonwealth period there was a national increase in cases of alleged witchcraft, and there was one case in Ashford. The accused was Wilman, the wife of George Worsiter, a sawyer of Ashford. The person bewitched was a girl of 15 years, Sarah, the daughter of John Harris, a shoemaker. Several residents gave evidence that they had seen the girl ill and having strange fits. The suggestion that she was bewitched was apparently made by Anthony Harlott, a mariner from the “Isle of Garnesy”. In the end, Worsiter was found not guilty. Harlott appears to have been a determined 'witch-hunter' – a month later he was making similar allegations about a women of Boughton Aluph."