Barrow, Maurice (1598 -1666)

Maurice Barrow was a puritan and a great friend of Oliver Cromwell. Reputed to have been one of the wealthiest commoners in England, he built Barningham Park, known at the time as Brackland Park. Having been responsible for the Puritanisation of Barningham Church, his wife Lady Marye Pyntz, daughter of Sir Richard Smith of Leeds Castle, is buried there. Maurice Barrow died in 1666 without descendents and the main landholdings were inherited by his cousin Maurice Shelton, a Norfolk man with lineage connected to the 3rd American President, Thomas Jefferson