MEM24554 - Post-medieval drive in Yearnor Wood (Monument)

A drive from Yearnor (Drive 1) runs through the farm and fields, then descends through the woods before turning into a tunnel to reach Ashley Combe. This survives in very good condition for much of its course. From Yearnor to the edge of the woods it is visible as a level, grass covered track with a retaining wall on the edge of a pasture field. In the woods the drive is characterised by the presence of drystone walls on both sides. A good example of this can be seen at SS 85630 48054, where a path up to enclosure MEM15533 crosses this drive. Here, the retaining wall on the upslope side is built at the base of a rock outcrop, it is built of small, horizontally laid stone blocks and is 1 metre high and 0.3 metres wide; the wall on the downslope side is 0.5 metres high, 1 metre wide and the level drive is 2.5 metres wide. To the north of this, as the drive descends towards Ashley Combe and as it approaches the junction of several paths and drives at SS 85597 48166, the path is hidden to the east by a stony bank, 2.5 metres wide, 1.5 metres high and 34 metres long, with retaining walls on both sides. The 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map [1] shows most but not all of the 19th Century drives and paths between Ashley Combe and Culbone; the tunnels are also depicted on the map. Documentary evidence suggests that the drives were laid out in the 1840s and perhaps largely completed by the early 1850s, when Lord King travelled abroad following his wife’s death in 1852. [2]