62 HEXHAM PARISH. has a grey and green slated farm house, sheltered in the customary way with a clump of ash trees. A pasture field near by has the old oxen- ploughed ridges. The substantial farm house of Low Eshells stands among well-cared-for grass fields, and is sheltered from the north and west by neatly ‘rigged’ heather-thatched barns and shed. In 1547 a tenement at the Esshe Shells was held by Thomas Gibson at the yearly rent of 12s. 6d. ; and in 1608 George Ogle held a tenement here and another at Winter-house, worth £6 2s. 6d. by the year, whilst Rinyon Forster, Thomas Rowland, and Matthew Forster held another tenement at the Over Eisheeles, which was worth £\ 15s. a year. In 1663 Thomas Ogle of Nether-hishills was rated for that place and Winter-house at £22 17s. 6d., Sir William Fenwick being rated at ^18 2s. qd. for Overishells and the Heigh. There is no evidence to connect the family of Forster so long associ- ated with this place with the Forsters of Bamburghshire, though the same Christian names occur, and it is curious that after leaving Hexhamshire this line has become settled in Islandshire, near Bamburgh. Matthew Forster answered at the court in 1626, and William Forster in 1665; the latter was buried on the 9th January, 1671.1 By the award 011 the division of Hexham common in 1800, Charles John Clavering was allotted 153 acres of freehold land and 30 stints for High Eshells, and 116 acres of copyhold land and 27! stints for Low Eshells. The Winter-house is a thatched homestead overlooking the Rowley burn, whose banks are here clothed with well-grown hardwood trees. The Heigh (pronounced ‘ Hythe ’) is also heather-thatched ; it was in 1547 held with lands in Black-hall and Steel by John Swinburn. It was granted as part of the estate of Sir John Swinburn, by letters patent,2 dated 6th April, 1604, to Sir Henry Lindley of Hadden, in Kent, knight, and to John Starkey of the same place, gentleman, his servant, both extensive grantees of monastic and other lands in the county. It was sold by them on the 26th February, 1605, to Sir John Fenwick of Wallington, and in 1663, as has been already mentioned, it belonged to Sir William Fenwick. In 1722 Hercules 1 Thomas Lawes of the Eshells, ‘a reputed papist,’ was carried before a justice of the peace, on the charge of having been concerned in the late rebellion; but having the reputation of an honest, quiet, and peaceable man, he was discharged, and obtained a certificate, dated 23rd October, 1716. Sessions Records. In the following year, he, as a Homan Catholic, registered his estate, which consisted of a messuage in Hexham, which he held in right of his wife. Land Revenue Record Office Auditor’s Enrolments, vol. xviii. p. 20.