Barlands House

I was out surfing the web, looking to see if anyone had posted family pictures or something of interest from the Merton to Dolton area of Devon.  Imagine my surprise to see that Barland House is for sale!  Barland House was the residence of William and his son Samuel Halls for a period of at least ten years between 1891 and 1901.  I never thought I would have the chance to see pictures of the interior.  The asking price is just shy of 800,000 pounds.  If you would like to see the listing it is at Zoopla, a real estate sales site.

This photo was taken sometime prior to 1930.  Note the contrast to the modern photo taken sometime in the past year.

As you can see the sunroom has been remodeled over the years and now extends past the window on its left.  In addition the lawn has undergone extensive infill/regrading and the steps to the lower lawn have been removed.  Finally, there seems to have been an extension or addition at the right of the house.

The front hall seems to have preserved much of the original woodwork of the bannister going up to the second floor.

All in all a very nice looking place.  A pity I don't have a spare 800,000 pounds about to buy it.

Google Streetview

You might think that talking about something like Google Street View would have nothing to do with genealogy, but you would be wrong. The range of places that Google Street View has made available to people is staggering. While the coverage varies from area to area, it is still quite impressive.

One of my favourite Street View pastimes is to wander the country lanes of north Devon. You can see old buildings and churches, often the inscriptions on the sides of buildings are visible, as are road signs, addresses and so on.

I took me a while, but I found Barland House in Dolton, Devon, on Google Street View. It's not that the image wasn't on Street View, but that I didn't know exactly where in Dolton Barland House was.

Here is a picture of Barland House taken circa 1900











Here is a Google Streetview picture of Barland House taken in the past few years, but from Rectory Rd.

If you click on the image you can see the sign on the fence in the lower right of the picture, it says "Barlands".

You can find Street View in Google Maps just look for the little gold coloured man in the upper left corner. Not every place has been "Street Viewed" by Google, but lots have. If you haven't tried Street View yet to see places your ancestors lived, you definitely should.