A FIRST volunteer session has been held to help restore and reveal historic woodland planted near Porlock by 19th century computing pioneer, mathematician, and writer Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace, daughter of poet Lord Byron, spent summers living in the now-demolished Ashley Combe, above Porlock Weir, in the 1830s and 1840s.

She carried out scientific work, and with husband William King developed one of the Westcountry’s first arboretums in woods near Culbone.

Now, the parish council has been organising clearance work with the support of volunteers to help rediscover the historic landscape she helped to create.

In a three-hour session the volunteers cut back foliage such as holly and rhododendron on a site close to the South West Coast Path.