25 Broadway, Merton Barn, Grantchester

History of 25 Broadway, Grantchester

Listed building:

Barn, now house. C18 and mid C20. Timber-framed, weatherboarded and longstraw thatched.

The barn once belonged to Merton Farm. The names comes from Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, who purchased the land from William de Appelford about 1270 AD when he was undecided as to whether to found his college in Oxford or Cambridge. Merton College owned the barn until 1962.

The barn is marked on a map of 1795. In 1887 the barn was used for a parish dinner to celebrate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Afterwards a game of ‘greasy bowsprit’ was played over the river.