taggerty

The photographer noted “There’s something Heathcliffey about this place”

Byegate Hall, Northumberland. © Copyright ian shiell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photo © Copyright ian shiell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 Have been trying to find out more about Bygate Hall, where Mark Forster was born 6 Dec 1782 according to this document.

Jack Forster drew this map showing where the home was located when he visited there in about 1962.

Map showing Rothbury and track up to Bygate Hall from Alwinton

If you search Bygate Hall on the web you find “Bygate Hall Cottages” by the Coquet River, but these are not located in quite the right place according to Jack’s map. The link below shows both Bygate Hall Cottages where a stream called Croft Sike joins the R. Coquet, as well as the place which Jack indicated, which is midway between Bell Hill to the north and Long Hill to the south and well to the west of the Coquet River and called “Byegate Hall”. You might need to track to the south-west and zoom in as the map doesn’t seem to open at exactly the spot I intend it to.

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/grid/386500_610500_120

I think “Byegate Hall” is where Mark Forster was born. They were less pedantic about spelling back then. It’s certainly the place Jack Forster meant, and Jack led us to believe that it was the Forster’s ancestral home.

Here are more photos of Byegate Hall, now apparently abandoned if not derelict If you want to copy them be sure to credit the photographer.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_Geograph_British_Isles_project_needing_categories_in_grid_NT8508

Just to muddy the picture though, Google quickly finds  a reference from 26 June 1760 to “William Marshall, Byegate Hall, gentleman” and from 15 Aug 1810 when a John Marshall of Byegate Hall, farmer, died of consumption aged 24 and was buried at Burness, to the southwest of Bygate Hall. These two dates straddle the 1782 date of Mark Forster’s birth, so where do the Forsters fit in at Byegate or Bygate Hall?

Postscript: Have answered my own question after spending a few days reading the Allenton (Alwinton) Parish register. Many people lived at Bygate Hall – it was pretty much a small village in itself in the eighteenth century. The Forsters were definitely employees! More in a later post.