Barrell

The 18th century churchwarden accounts poor-law records that a Widow Barrell was paying rates  for an holding in the West End. She may have been the mother or grandmother of Lydia Barrell who was baptised on 16th October 1737. Her parents were William and Elizabeth Barrell. It is possible the family name was Bazelle and they were of Huguenot extraction.

Bazzelle was originally the name of some Huguenot refugees from Savoie who left France in the 16th century but nobody with that name has been discovered in the records relating to Somerset seen so far but there are some similar names which can support either argument. One argument is that Barrell may be a family name like ‘cooper’  or have some other English origin. The other argument is that it is an Anglicised version of  Bazzelle.

A Widow Baler was shown to have been living in Ston Easton in 1700 which may have been a different family or a variation on the Bazzelle name.

Bussells were living at Chew Magna in the period 1750-1800 which may have been another local variation of the name but there was probably a small Huguenot community in Chew Magna.

Mary, the daughter of Robert and Martha Boissel  was baptised on 22nd June 1760 near  in Long Sutton near Somerton. The FreeReg record puts a question mark after the Boissel name and it must be remembered how flexible the spelling of names were in that period in addition to the problems of reading some of the handwriting.

There is little doubt that Elizabeth Barrell was a widow with two daughters in 1766 when she held a lease on ‘Rows’ from the Waldegraves. Her age was given as 33 and her daughter Elizabeth was eleven Lydia was four. The ages in the leases were estimates and the 1766 ledger (Book 13) was a summary of the leases which had several handwritten additions suggesting that Francis Board  had taken over the leases so the original lease may have been sold in c1741.

The house she lived in has been identified with a reasonable degree of certainty and was probably on the site of Hillview/Hillside in Bathway. The road in front of her home was called Acridge which meant she lived close to Lewis Thiery who was the grandson of one of the confirmed Huguenots of the same name. It was also close to Rouse Corner which may have been named after a Huguenot family.

Elizabeth Barrel lived next door to Martha Gait who was paid by the parish to look after elderly and ill people so Elizabeth may have also helped with looking after them.