She was said to be helped in designing the landscaping of the grounds as an English garden by the learned Isaac Watts, who had been a long-term house guest of her and her late husband, and continued to live in her household.
The Hartopp family had already completed one of the early plantings of a Cedar of Lebanon tree in Great Britain, adjacent to an ornamental pond.
When the Methodists moved into their first purpose-built college at Richmond, south of London in 1843, Farrar was appointed as the Classical Tutor.
By marriage the estate passed to Charles Fleetwood, one of Oliver Cromwell's generals, and was named for him.
In 1800, he married Sarah Wilberforce, sister of his friend William, who visited Stoke Newington regularly.
In a time when girls' educational opportunities were limited, it offered a wide range of subjects (including sciences) "on a plan in degree differing from any hitherto adopted", according to the prospectus.
One of the school's founders was William Allen, a Quaker active with the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
His marriage to Grizell Hoare was the subject of a satirical cartoon, in which the school is referred to as the Newington Nunnery.
Joseph Pease, later the first Quaker MP, wrote a doggerel verse praising Allen's marriage.