Extract from History of Some of the Old Buildings in Rode by Dawna Pine, second edition
At the bottom of Mogg Hill, in the field on the right, is Barrow Farm. It takes its name from a long gone Bronze Age round barrow located nearby. This property was once the site of a Roman vineyard, according to Mr. H. Hopkins. A.H. Batten-Pooll in is his book, A West Country Potpourri, had this to say about the property:
“Barrow House, a small but very lovely old house which stood in Barrowfield near the river, and which may perhaps have been the Manor house of one of the three manors (Rode, Langham or Woolverton).”
A rent survey of 1609 records the property as owned by the Lord of the Manor, Sir Francis Manners, and occupied by the late Thomas Whitchurch. The baptism and burial records also mention a Thomas Whitchurch, of the barrow, (presumably his son) from 1615 to 1622. It is known that John Wesley preached in Rode in 1746, 1749, 1780 and 1781. It is thought that on at least one of these dates that he preached at Barrow House. The Church Rate books show that a John Fussell lived at Barrow House and farm for a good many years around 1834. (At that time, it was still owned by T. W. Ledyard). By the time of the 1851 census, John Fussell and his family were still living at Barrow House. Barrow Farm was put up for sale as part of the Langham Estate property of the late T. W. Ledyard on Wednesday the 21st of August 1861. In 1862, Alfred Haines owned the house and land. Also in 1862 John Fussell quit working Barrow Mead Farm and retired from business. John Weslie Perrott was then listed for house and land at Barrow Farm and it was owned by Mr. Nailor. In 1875, Jonathan Noad, butcher, was at Barrow House and he was still here as late as 1883.According to H. Hopkins, when it was put up for sale by auction in 1891, Barrow Farm was in the occupation of Thomas Windell and comprised a dwelling house, homestead and yards all about 45 acres. However, Mr. A. H. Batten-Pooll said in his book that the house was torn down in the 1880s. Recent owners of Barrow Farm, Roger and Ann Sharp, have a photograph that was taken of the farm in the 1930s. According to them, the farmhouse walls were only about 6 feet high by then; but the back of the house, which was then a cowshed, appeared to be intact, as does the small barn which is still here today. The barns were in use when the photograph was taken. However, Roger Sharp explained that the house was probably torn down when it was no longer occupied, in order to avoid paying taxes. The pastureland and buildings formerly known as Barrow Farm were sold by the Batten-Poolls to Frederick Charles Arnold of Ivy House (farmer) in 1954. Arnold sold a small part to Frome Council for them to build the Mead in 1960 (for £1500!) and the rest of the farm to Thomas Peter Holdaway of Woolverton. The land at Barrow Farm was then sold in 1985 to Jacques Aubree who ran a snail farm here. The Sharps bought the property with a partially built house in August of 1997. On the north wall is an original window from the old house.
Barrow Farm
Field numbers on local maps
Plots 224, 225, 226 and 227 on 1839 Rode Tithe Map
Plots 58, 71, 72, 74, 186 on 1887 OS Map
Plot 202 on 1901 OS Map
