Local connections

Following their honeymoon, Ada and William regularly visited Ashley Combe.  Evidence from several books (see bibliography section) and research in the Lovelace family archives at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and extracts from contemporary newspapers (via British Library online), we know:

• Ada and William King had their honeymoon at Ashley Combe 1835.
• Ada and William and their children each year used Ashley Combe as their ‘summer residence’ – apparently staying for two months each year.
• First known letter by Ada from Ashley Combe (to Mary Somerville) 1837.
• Regular visits to Ashley Combe by Ada’s mother, Lady Byron – 1840s.
• Ada visited Andrew Crosse at Fyne Court in the Quantocks from 1841 onwards to discuss his experiments with electricity. Later, she had a relationship with his son John.
• Ada ‘rides out’ with Frederic Knight at Simonsbath in 1843
• Ada continued her mathematical and scientific work at Ashley Combe, confirmed by her letters to Charles Babbage (1843) and Michael Faraday, written from Ashley Combe.
• Charles Babbage visited Ada at Ashley Combe on several occasions, supported by letter from Ada inviting him to discuss matters on “The Philosophers’ Walk” (September 1849)
• Ada’s last confirmed visit to Ashley Combe (based on known surviving letters) was in 1850
• As Ada lay dying in London in 1852, her 16-year-old son Byron ‘often talked to her about old times and all our excursions in the hills about Ashley Combe.’
• William King devoted huge resources to developing the grounds of Ashley Combe and surrounding woodlands (all the way to Culbone) in the picturesque style – clearly to appeal to the Romantic nature of Ada (inherited from her father, Lord Byron), an influence that her mother tried so hard to eradicate.