Yew Walk Steps and East Driveway

Mrs Thwaytes' Yew Walk and East Driveway

We always believed that during Mrs Thwaytes' time (also Thwaites) at Charmandean that she spent a great deal of money on improvements to the estate, including but not a full list:

Adding East and West wings to the house
Adding the West Conservatory
Building the North and South Lawns
Extending the Estate to the South, down to the Upper Brighton Road, but also West and North

But more importantly for this particular article, she built 3 sets of steps leading from the Yew Walk down to the 'South' (also known as Lower, or East Lawn') lawn.

We believed that during the development of Longlands Spinney in the 1960's, all of the original features were demolished or removed, but during 2022 we discovered one of the sets of steps remains.....

The previous owner, up to 2022, knew the developer of Longlands Spinney; as a result, he had pick of the plots. He chose the corner plot, SE, in the bottom left of the map below:

The below map overlays the original Steps position with current house outlines of Longlands Spinney:

This is what one of the three sets of Steps looked like in the 1950's during the time of Charmandean as a school:

One of the sets of steps, in the 1950's, clearly showing the Yews of the Yew Walk

Below is a lovely clear photo of the North Lawn; the Yews of the Yew Walk on the right of the photo. This is looking West, towards Charmandean Lane

The below map shows the original position of the Charmandean East driveway, and where the Yew Walk starts

So where did the Yew Walk Start?

The Yew Walk started from the East end of Charmandean, from the East Driveway.

One can see this from the below, from an aerial photo of Charmandean from the 1950's:

The remaining steps... ?

The below photos display 1941 vs. 2022; we believe these are the same steps, in the same position, with the lower step being the original construction from the 1850's.

What an amazing original feature to find....thats what history is all about :-)