The home of those Charltons who drove Sir Ralph Fenwick out of Tarset Castle, and even out of Tynedale, "to his great reproache," observes an old writer, was at Hesleyside, which is nearly two miles from Bellingham northwards. Here a tower was erected in the fourteenth century. There were other powerful Charltons in the immediate neighbourhood--at the Bowere, a mile further up the Tyne, for example, where there lived Hector Charlton, "one of the greatest thieves in those parts," if old stories tell true. It was Hector who bought off two men that were to be hung, and then let them loose to prey on the King's lieges, taking for himself, as became a man boastful of his shrewdness, a due share of their spoil. Also it was the lady of Hesleyside who, in place of a sound meal, would sometimes serve up a spur on an otherwise empty dish, by way of hint that the larder had need to be replenished; and Hesleyside, proud of its past, still keeps this spur as an heirloom. But out of strength, as says Samson's riddle, there cometh sweetness. The later generations of Charltons have been a cultured race, and it was a rare collection of choice books which was dispersed at the Hesleyside sale a few years ago. Of the ancient tower nothing now remains, the present mansion of the family, situated amid woods which are conspicuous for many miles around, having been built at a comparatively recent period. At Bellingham, where several fairs are still annually held, and which has been, so long as local history goes back, the central market town of this remote district, we find amid the billowy moorlands a sweet pastoral country, set about with well-timbered lands. The village took its name from the De Bellinghams (now extinct), a family which tried to drive out the Charltons of Hesleyside, and came to no good thereby. Under Henry VIII. Sir Alan de Bellingham was the Warden of the Marches. The village is somewhat commonplace, but has a very interesting church and beautiful surroundings. A mile away Hareshaw Lynn comes tumbling down, between seamed cliffs and verdurous precipices. "'Tween wooded cliffs, fern-fringed it falls, All broken into spray and foam."