514 Low Buston. By J. C. Hodgson. 



Bell's Estate of 287 acres, estimated as 4-J- farms. 



The family of Bell of Shortridge was possessed of an estate 

 made up of at least four small holdings, which together formed 

 a narrow strip about a mile in length and of varying width. 



They were Middle Buston, Shortridge, Spittal-house, and a 

 holding called Joseph's Close, which has not been identified, 

 though a field bearing that designation was included in a Low 

 Buston conveyance of 1726, of Musgrave to Wilkinson. 



The Spittal-house, a singularly shaped piece of ground, some- 

 what resembles the ankle and foot with the ti-ead on the foreshore 

 of about half a mile. It was rated as " 1 farm " and might 

 consist of some 60 acres, including links. It would include the 

 land given by Hugh, the son of Gregory of Butlesden, to the 

 Canons of Alnwick, and probably the two acres given by Henry, 

 son of Hugh, to Newminster, viz : the acre called Heyrigidacre, 

 near the Birling field, and the acre near the Salters' letch ; also 

 the acre called Saltrig, given by Edmund, the son of Edmund- 

 The runner of water beai*s the name of the Salters' letch, to this 

 day. How these parcels passed from the possession of New- 

 minster Abbey has not been discovered ; possibly by exchange. 

 In the Ministers' accounts, in 1540, we find that Alnwick Abbey 

 owned in Buston, one tenement, valued at 4s. 1 



Clarkson includes the Spittell in his survey of the Warkworth 

 Bai-ony, in 1567. He describes two holdings, one held by 

 Roger Clay for three lives by a lease made by the late " Earle 



Henry the rente whereof to be yerely payd to the late 



dissolved Monasterye of Hulne, which lease was given and 

 surrendered into the hands of the said Commissioners to my 

 Lord's use. And then they did demyse the same tenem* to the 

 said Roger Gisije and his two sons, in the maner and forme 

 above specified, .at the yearly rent of 15s. Id." The meaning is 

 not very clear, but we see that Hulne Abbey and the Earl of 

 Northumberland, each had a property in it. The terms of the 

 other holding have been translated by Dr. Hardy, as follows : — 

 " Gabriel Ogle holds there a Place (? a mansion), with barns and 

 other building, and a croft with a garden containing one acre ; 

 also a certain parcel of arable land, meadow and pasture, to wit, 

 in Le Strother in Nether Buston field a parcel of arable land 

 containing a half acre, a piece of pasture there containing 1£ 

 acres, with % rood of meadow there, one parcel of land called 

 1 Tate, rol. ii., p. 27. 



