The name means "east farm" or "east town". The "west town" may have been on land that was said to exist to the west of Baleshare, washed away in the sixteenth century, over which it was possible to walk to the Monach Islands at low tide.[2] The Monachs are some Шаблон:Convert to the west. Another story suggests there was once a land bridge to Kirkibost, Шаблон:Convert to the north.[3] The basis for this seems to be a reference in the Exchequer Rolls for 1542 that the valued rental had been decreased due to encroachment by the sea at some unspecified (presumably recent) date.
Archaeology
Two prehistoric settlements have been uncovered, which contain the remains of a circular stone house and pieces of pottery, bone and metal. In common with other sites in the area, they are threatened by coastal erosion.[4][5]
Baelshare was chosen as one of the pilot projects for the Shorewatch programme, which aimed to training community groups to search for new archaeological sites and record information on them to be passed on to local and national archives. In the first year of the pilot project, 2005, the island was severely affected by storms. In some cases, up to 50 metres of the coast were lost in a single night. Between August and December 2005, up to four metres of archaeological remains were lost to erosion.[6]
