Barrows Farm was once an important place, an outpost of Montacute Priory and the site of a valuable salt spring.

References to the "Salt Spring" may be found in the following books:

The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical ... By Joseph Nightingale, Thomas

…….. is a small village, called East Chinnock, near which there is a salt spring, supposed to be the strongest in this country. A short distance from this spring is a manufactory for making salt.

Wells and Springs of Somerset By Linsdall Richardson, William Whitaker,  Pub. 1928

This interesting spring is situated in Hurdlands Fiels to the North East of Barrows Farm at “Salt Ho.” on the 1inch geological survey map (old series) sheet 18. On the 6 inch map, sheet 89 N.W. Somerset, “Salt Hole” and “Spring” are marked. To the country folk the “hollow” in which is the spring is known as the “Salt Hole”

Local Nomenclature: A Lecture on the Names of Places, Chiefly in the West of East By George Philip Rigney Pulman, Published 1857 Longman, Brown, Green , Longmans, and Roberts

East Chinnock, equidistant from Crewkerne and Yeovil, on the main road, is famous for a salt spring, from which salt was formerly made in considerable quantities. The proportion of salt with which the water is impregnated is about one in forty, by weight, — that is, a pound of salt can be produced from forty pounds of the water. The salt manufactory has long been discontinued, but the spring remain as formerly.

Geology of the Country Around Bridport and Yeovil - Page 211 by Vernon Wilson, Geological Survey of Great Britain Dept. of Scientific and Industrial Research - 1958

Formerly salt was manufactured in considerable quantities near Middle Chinnock, the source being a spring which issued from an isolated and faulted outcrop of Inferior Oolite beneath a patchy cover of Fuller's Earth.Analysis showed 5826 ppm of sodium chloride

The Forgotten Spas and Mineral Springs of South East Somerset J.D.Mather and H.C. Prudden

At East Chinnock, near Yeovil, a salt spring, the water from which contained about 6000 mg/l of NaCl, was used for salt making until at least the mid 19th Century. The East Chinnock waters are believed to originate from the Inferior Oolite and may contain a component dating from the Pleistocene.