When Neil Gardiner bought the land that became Great Auclum, he looked at the landscape and visualised a driveway based on the route of the existing cart track. This track started at the front gate in Man’s Hill and went down a slope towards a sharp right-hand bend before twisting up the tree-lined hill and finished up by going past the site of what became the house. Gardiner thought it would be fun to have the bends of the driveway banked – rather like Brooklands.

In 1938 work began on the construction of a tarmac surface and the creation of the five artificially banked bends. All construction was done by guesswork and eye which meant that the layout of corners was not ideally suited to high-speed racing cars. Had the design been more scientific, it is possible that the course would have been easier to drive at higher speeds. So possibly the very nature of its construction made the hill all the more challenging for drivers.

A local engineer and road constructor, Jim Fisher was commissioned to build the driveway One of Fisher’s employees, Jim Devine, told Stephen Lovegrove that he worked on the construction of the drive-way with Freddie Simpson and Mick Pinches and that they had to use a vibrating roller to lay the tarmac as it wasn’t possible to use the steam-roller because of the steep cambers required. No expense was spared in building the drive and overtime for the men was plentiful. When the work was finished, and the drive opened, a steam fun-fair was laid on outside Jim Fisher’s works.

The original banking on the first bend was about four feet high and constructed of concrete over foundations of compressed clay and hardcore and a tarmacked top-dressing. After the meeting in 1949 it was decided that the banking was insufficient for safe use and Fisher was again commissioned to extend the banking by a further three feet before the 1950 meeting. Stephen Lovegrove’s uncle, the late Tony Lovegrove, remembered working on this extension and recalled that the extra height was achieved by filling oil drums with cement to form the supports of the extra concrete banking making the total height around seven feet. However, this later extension was also done without a proper design and the banking was rarely used to achieve fast times.

The hill exists today but the fields that formed the main spectator enclosure are now a housing estate.