Barrowshaw, was in 1633 the abode of the Brearleys. Abell Brearley was a landholder in Oldham in 1681. The Leeses appear to have held land at either Further or Nearer Barrowshaw, in the seventeenth century. Their descendants were relatives of the Leeses, of Pit-bank, and have become the progenitors of several of the principal families in the district. Alice, the heiress of John Lees, gentleman, of Alt.-hill, married Jonathan Pickford, Esq., of Macclesfield, who died 1689, and was great grandfather of Joseph Piekford Esq., afterwards Sir Joseph Radcliffe, Bart., by whom the property at Barrowshaw was possessed, and it is now vested in the present Sir Joseph Radcliffe, Bart. Sholver contains several yeomanry farms, which became freeholds on their purchase from the Prestwich family. One of these was possessed in 1681 by Raphe Hilton. Daniel Hilton held land near West-street, in Oldham, in 1688. Samuel Hilton, yeoman, of Hathershaw, died in 1753. The late Mr. Abraham Hilton, mill owner, of Croft-bank, died August 28, 1827. Top of Fold was in 1752, the dwelling of Mr. John Kershaw, an opulent freeholder, who in his day possessed about six farms. The Mellors, Buckleys, and Dunkerleys, were amongst the principal families of the hamlet of Sholver, in the last and preceding centuries. Platt`s Farm, in Sholver, seems to have been the abode of the ancestors of John Platt, yeoman, who held land at Hill in 1759. Tweedales, another tenement, received its designation from a family of the same name. Joseph Tweedale was a freeholder in Sholver, 1681. Moorside was long the residence of the Cowpers. There was anciently a farm called Cowpers. in the vicinity. At Sholver-moor stood the habitations of the Dronsfields and Bardsleys, old families in the district. Thomas Dronsfield, yeoman, was living in 1735. Barrowshaw-Hill was in 1752 partly the property of' the Rev. Jacob Scholes, a trustee of the will of Samuel Scholes, yeoman, of Glodwick, and Horsedge, a benefactor to the poor of Oldham, who was related to the Scholeses,

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