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Titan BarrowTitan Barrow was built for Southwell Pigott, Esq. in 1748. John Wood, the elder, was the architect and his original drawings for the house are in Bath Reference Library. Wood refers to the house in his book A Description of Bath and was evidently proud of the design. The house in its original form was a fine example of Palladian architecture. Although extensively altered during the past two centuries, the house still retains much of its original splendour. |
Picture: Architects drawing - Titan Barrow
It is in a uniquely beautiful situation facing the valley of the River Avon towards Bath. Wood explains the name saying that Titan is the proper name of the north end of Kingsdown, surmounted by a barrow or tumulus. The hall front of the house faces Kingsdown-hence the name. Wood, however, joins the two words and calls the house Titanbarrow Logia. Logia is an obsolete word to-day; in those days it was used to mean Lodge.
When Pigott died about 1755, the house passed to his daughter Mrs. Riggs and subsequently to her daughter Anne, later Lady Miller, wife of Sir John Riggs Miller.
The Yeeles family became the next owners for most of the nineteenth century. James Yeeles, a skinner, had come to Bathford when, in 1768, he had purchased the Trevarno Mill in Bathford. His son George acquired Titan Barrow about 1796 and the last of the family to live there was his daughter Mary who died in 1884
After the Yeeles family there was a succession of owners from 1886 including Baroness D'Orgeval and Reginald Philip Way who published a book in 1957 with the title 'Antique Dealer', for that was his profession. He describes the beauty of Titan Barrow and its gardens when he owned and lived in it for a few years around 1930.
The last of the private owners of Titan Barrow were the Right Reverend Dr. Wynne-Willson and his wife. Before his retirement he had been bishop of Bath and Wells. He preached on occasion at the parish church and celebrated Holy Communion on Sundays when the vicar was unable to do so. Dr. Wynne-Willson and his wife took a great interest in the life and particularly in sport in the village and in 1945 conveyed the six and a half acre Folly Field to the parish as a gift.
Titan Barrow was acquired in 1953 by the Whitehaven Trust Limited, re-named Whitehaven and maintained as a Christian Science House.