| Summary : A carriage drive in all likelihood laid out by John Corbet of Sundorne Castle in the early 19th-century. This carriage drive appears to have connected several specific viewpoints to the north of the Haughmond abbey ruins, and may have supplemented the Sundorne carriage drive from which views of the abbey were actually quite restricted. This abbey carriage drive is not mentioned in contemporary accounts of the Sundorne drive, and is far smaller. For much of its length it is aligned along the pre-existing route to the abbey, although where newly constructed, there is evidence of more than just a simple track. Several short sections of masonry defining the route survive, although much is reduced to a stone bank. An 1841 estate map suggests there may have been large gateposts where the walls met the main Sundorne drive, although there is no evidence today. The route eastwards from the crossroads with Sundorne drive is essentially just a farm track leading to Haughmond Farm. The route westwards is much wider, more formally laid out, and descends the slight slope in a curve, which would have gradually unfolded a view of the abbey. The 1841 map depicts the route continued to a gate in the field wall, blocked after 1969. The line of the drive beyond today is a hollow way from which a track branches off to the north. The track ends at a square platform within a medieval enclosure at the foot of the slope, which may have been an earthwork of a much earlier building which then served as a viewing platform.The drive then turned southwards joining the original medieval approach to the abbey. The route followed earlier boundaries or tracks, although the exact route and end point is not clear. Logically it would return to Sundorne House, but there is no evidence beyond this point. Further views were provided by smaller routes leading off to the ornamental lake created by the dam to the north. Other ornamental landscape features associated with the routes still survive. |
More information : (SJ 5406 1522 - SJ 5428 1545) Carriage drive.
Between January and December 2002, English Heritage carried out a detailed analytical field survey of the environs of the standing buildings of Haughmond Abbey (Event record 1384572) (1). The survey, which covered an area of 19ha, was intended to inform the site's management and to put into context the findings of the small-scale excavations carried out between 1975 and 1979.
For further details, see Archaeological Investigation Report AI/10/2003, which includes photographs, plans at various scales, interpretative diagrams and a full textual description and analysis. (1)
Scheduled. (2) |