Ashford Carbonell is named after the ford on the River Teme and a branch of the famous Carbonel family, Lords of Canisy in Normandy at the time of the Norman Conquest, who were granted land in the area.

The ford, situated at a point known as Teme's Green, was in use from prehistoric times, being an important staging post on a trade route which ran to mid-Wales from Bewdley, where the River Severn could be crossed.

The village stands sufficiently high to be safe from the regular flooding of the River Teme, a fast-flowing river that rises rapidly when heavy rains fall upstream in the Welsh Borders or Corve Dale. However,in the past, the ford would have been impassable during high water and it is thought that Donkey Lane, in the village, was so-called because it was here that waiting donkeys and pack-horses would have been coralled, waiting for the waters to subside.

The fine single span masonry segmental arch bridge was built to carry what is now a minor road between the two Ashfords, across the river Teme. The arch has a span of 81 ft. (25 m) and the walls are built in the local red sandstone. Telford designed it when he was County Surveyor for Shropshire and it was here that he introduced for the first time the technique of not filling the spandrels with rubble but leaving them hollow, thus reducing the weight on the arch.