Articles

The raiding families of the Anglo-Scottish border lived outside the law for some 300 years, owing allegiance to their family name rather than to either country.

Several Reiver family names occur in Mary Turnbull’s ancestry.

The houses of Cowpen Square were built for the miners of the Cowpen pits: one narrow room and a ladder to the garret, with the inner square as their shared social space.

Brothers George and Thomas Besford were charged with Highway Robbery and tried at the Old Bailey in London on 7th September 1768.

David and Mary Besford lived at 19 Church Street, Amble, where they had twelve children, eight of whom survived beyond childhood.

The village of La Boisselle was the subject of heavy fighting during the First World War. George Besford (1893–1966) was wounded here in the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.

Besford in Shropshire was recorded in Domesday Book with eight households, among the smallest settlements listed.

Birtley is a village located about ten miles north of Hexham in Northumberland.

Radcliffe was once home to over 700 people. It was an independent and self-sufficient settlement with its own schools, shops, churches and working men’s club.

Percy Robert Smith Besford, born in the Lowestoft area in 1914, was a skipper in the Royal Naval Reserve and was Mentioned in Despatches in the 1944 King’s Birthday Honours.