Restoration of Inscription

Merriott Village Hall, along with a bungalow for the caretaker, was given to the community by Robert Blake in 1925. He was born in Taunton in 1851 to a staunch Unitarian family, and qualified in Munich and Manchester as an engineer. In 1873 he went to the Falklands to try his hand at sheep farming. He returned to the UK in 1880 and visited Manchester where he met his wife Dorothea (Dora) Herford, also from a strong Unitarian family. They married in 1881 and returned to the Falklands and had eight children. Robert was very successful and eventually was managing not only land in the Falklands but also 179,000 hectares in Patagonia.

Robert and his wife returned to the UK, because of his ill health, in 1898 and lived in Merriott House which still stands today. He gave the Village Hall, the bungalow and the Recreation Ground to the village in 1925 as a memorial to his wife who died in 1923. Robert died in 1931.

We have recently employed a buildings conservationist to restore the stonework at the front of the Hall

The inscription over the main front door translates as:

'For the public good

Dorothea H Blake

1853 - 1923

Sheep in Heaven

My Christ is the Light'