George Ashburner (1810-1869)
Merchant, of Calcutta; retired to Tilgate, Crawley, Sussex
Having made a fortune in India, he purchased the 2,185-acre Tilgate estate on which he built Tilgate Mansion (see images) into which he moved in 1863. Tilgate (today's Tilgate Park) features an unusually large number of American trees (notably Redwoods), which serves as a nod to George's childhood in America. When he died in 1869, his will was valued at just under £150,000. In 1880, his widow built "Villa La Scagliola" on a small, virtually uninhabited peninsula on Lake Maggiore in Italy, designed by the Swiss-Italian architect Augusto Guidini. Their only daughter and sole heiress, Mrs. Sarah Nix, sold the villa in 1890 and Tilgate was inherited by her husband, John Hennings Nix, remaining in the Nix family until 1939.
