Charles Henry Ashdown

Charles Henry Ashdown was a British historical writer whose books ranged across medieval arms and armour, castles, travel, and local history. Records of his published work show titles including British and Foreign Arms & Armour (1909), British Castles (1911), Armour & Weapons in the Middle Ages (1925), and studies connected with St. Albans and Hertfordshire.

His writing suggests a strong antiquarian interest in both material culture and place. In the front matter of British and Foreign Arms & Armour, he is identified as honorary secretary of the St. Albans and Herts Architectural and Archaeological Society and honorary curator of numismatics at the Herts County Museum, which helps explain the practical, museum-minded detail found in his books.

Ashdown also wrote local and civic histories, including works on St. Albans, a historical pageant there in 1907, and a history of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers. Although biographical details about his life are not easy to confirm from readily available sources, his books remain useful windows into how early 20th-century readers were introduced to Britain's medieval past.