The civil parish of Acton was on the eastern edge of the Forest of Mondrem in the Bronze Age, giving rise to the name "Actune", meaning "oak town", for the predominant pedunculate oaks. A Roman road from Middlewich to Whitchurch passed immediately to the north of the parish, but there is little evidence of settlement. An area north of Acton village was enclosed in the 8th and 9th centuries, and ancient field systems can be discerned elsewhere in this and the adjacent modern civil parishes.