1659-1730: Here is a gap of 71 years where I have not found any information on who is occupying Orgate House. No doubt it stayed in the Ward/Coates families especially if Barbara Coates (wife of Lancelot Moore (see below) turns out to be a daughter of Anthony Coates of Orgate (see above 1635). In which case Barbara Coates could have inherited Orgate and passed it to her husband Lancelot Moore.
Ralph and Eden (Coates) Ward likely died at Orgate leaving it to their son Simon, where he most likely was living when he died in 1690, but the Marske Parish records are missing for that crucial time period.
Some evidence that Simon Ward was probably living at Orgate during that time period is this:
“There was an inheritance dispute among relatives as to ownership of the mines and this resulted in a law suit which was heard in the Court of Chancery in 1682. Depositions of witnesses who were familiar with the mines testified that under the management of one of the disputants they had been very productive. “In his testimony, Simon Warde, a smelter stated that he had been a smelter at the Clints Mill for the past twenty years and that the mill was capable of smelting slag lead.”
(from a book by a Mike Gill who in turn, had made use of research carried out by L.O. Tyson and published in the journal, ‘British Mining No 50’ (1994).)