April 19th, 2011, VANCOUVER, B.C.



– ASHBURTON VENTURES INC. (ABR-TSX:V) (ARB-FRANKFURT)  (“Ashburton” or the “Company”)

is
pleased to announce that the drilling program has commenced at its Deep
Creek Project, located 112 kilometres north of Elko, Nevada. Rocky Peak
Drilling (Twin Falls, Idaho) has been engaged to drill up to sixteen
core holes for a total of 2,900 meters (9,600 ft.). The objectives of
the program are to locate additional zones of gold mineralization
southward along the Range Front Structure, and to test the extent of
high grade gold veins in the Upper Vein and Waterfall Vein areas.

The
2011 work program at Deep Creek began several weeks ago, and in spite
of late heavy snows the road and drill pad construction is nearly
complete. The remaining construction will be undertaken while drilling
begins at lower elevations along the Range Front Structure, where zones
of potentially greater hydrothermal alteration have been identified
through structure cell mapping (see news release, March 3, 2011).
As weather improves, drilling will move to the Upper Vein and Waterfall
Vein Areas, to test for extension of the known veins at depth and under
Tertiary volcanics to the southeast, and for additional veins not seen
at surface but suggested to exist by the presence of gold-bearing float
above the known veins. With over 640 meters of strike length, only 200
meters of the Upper Vein has been sampled continuously on surface, with
35 meters of length consistently over 10 g/t of gold to date. Sampling
is still early stage at the recently discovered Waterfall Vein, with a
length of 200 meters but only three samples collected to date, with two
assaying at 25.5 and 20.5 g/t Au. The ‘Thirteen-Five’ vein located 60
meters west of the Waterfall Vein is of undetermined length has only one
assay of 13.5 g/t Au collected to date (see news release, January 18, 2011).

Drilling
will be accomplished through the use of an EF-50 skid mounted drill,
operating two, twelve (12-hour) shifts per day. To expedite assay
results, core logging and splitting will be undertaken on-site, with
sample splits delivered to the ALS-Chemex Laboratories in Elko, Nevada.
The drilling campaign is anticipated to take 60-90 days to complete.

Exploration
on the property is also ramping up as the snow recedes, with a primary
focus on an area north-northeast of the present drilling program, where
historical soil and rock assays returned values up to 1.71 ppm Au and
4.66 ppm Au, respectively.

The
technical contents of this release were approved by Dr. Tom McCandless,
P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for Ashburton and a qualified
person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

Ashburton
Ventures is a junior exploration company actively seeking mineral
opportunities for the benefit of all its stakeholders. More information
on the Deep Creek project can be found at

www.ashburtonventures.com

.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Michael England, President


For further information contact:

Telephone: (604) 683-3995



Forward-Looking Statement:
Some
statements in this news release contain forward-looking information
that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of
Ashburton Ventures Inc. Actual results may differ materially from those
currently anticipated in such statements. Neither the TSX Venture
Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined
in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for
the adequacy or accuracy of this release.