Ada Lovelace - Ada in Porlock

Who was Ada Lovelace?

“that enchantress who has thrown her magic spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force which few masculine intellects…..could have exerted over it.”

Charles Babbage, 1843

Ada in Porlock

Born in 1815, Augusta Ada Byron was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle Milbanke and is best known for her work with Charles babbage in the conceptualisation of a programmable computer.

Ada was brought up by her mother, an education reformer, and encouraged to study mathematics and science as well as art and music. She married William King in 1835 and when he was made Earl of Lovelace in 1838, Ada become Countess of Lovelace.

On marrying WIlliam King, the couple took on the development of Ashley Combe estate, just west of Porlock. As well as developing the house, Ada and her husband formed gardens wit a series of terraces in an Italianate style and landscaped the surrounding woodland to form an attractive set of paths and viewpoints, including the “Philosophers’ Path”.

Ada found inspiration in the grounds of Ashley Combe and the area surrounding Porlock and corresponded with leading scientists of the day from her Porlock home.

Ada died in 1852 but her legacy lived on in her written work and correspondence, being noted by future luminaries in the world of computers, including Alan Turing, who read her notes and discussed the viability of Artificial Intelligence in terms of the “Lovelace Objection”, and the US Department of Defence, who named their first integrated programming language Ada.

The house at Ashley Combe was destroyed in the 1970s but it is still possible to walk in Ada’s footsteps along some of the paths that remain in Porlock and one objective of “Ada in Porlock” is to regenerate as much of these walkways and inspirational views as possible.

Who was Ada Lovelace?

Ada in Porlock

Further reading