Some five hundred years ago the Beele family ran Barne Farm, a substantial estate that covered what we largely know as Barne Barton today. Barne Road runs up through the heart of what amounted to around 168 acres of farmland in 1883 when it passed into the hands of General JG Trelawny.
The Trelawnys had acquired the estate after the last male heir of the Beeles had married the daughter of Jonathan Trelawny – sometime around 1674. In subsequent centuries the farm was leased out and the Avent family had it for many years up until the retirement of Joseph Avent in 1870. The Cuddefords leased it shortly after that and through until the middle of the Great War in 1916.
William Luscombe was the last to farm there and eventually he sold his interest to Plymouth Corporation. There are many Barn or Barne farms – or estates – around Devon, and the rest of the country, the barn (for storing grain, hay, straw or whatever) being one of the most fundamental of all farm buildings.
