A WALK AROUND ALSTON

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Alston lies within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), now a Geopark, on the upper reaches of the South Tyne River. It is the centre of a remote and sparsely populated area, surrounded by some of the highest fells in the Pennine chain, those which water the great trio of northern rivers, the Tyne, Wear and Tees.

The town, whose centre is a designated Conservation Area, lies on the slope of one of these fells facing north towards the Scottish border. At an altitude of 1,000 feet, Alston is said to be the highest market town in England, though it is many years since a market was held here.

The geological character of the countryside around Alston results from the build up of many layers of limestones, sandstones and shales. There are numerous waterfalls and rock pools formed at transition points where rocks of different hardness outcrop.

The most important aspect in the geology of Alston is that of mineral wealth. In the past the district has been one of the richest lead mining areas in Britain. Its history has been linked to mining since Roman times. During the 18 th century in particular, the mining industry of Alston Moor developed rapidly. This was helped further during the 1820’s, when the area was opened up to the outside world by the construction of new roads under the supervision of the famous John Macadam.

Our walk begins at the Market Place. It is the natural centre of the town and from here the main road, Front Street, can be seen, on the one hand climbing uphill to Townhead in the south and on the other downhill westward to Townfoot. It is at the Market Place that the main street changes direction and opens out into the hub of the town, providing the traditional market area and focus of the surrounding buildings.

The focal point of the town is the Cross with its shelter (1). The present Cross is the second copy of that built by Sir William Stephenson, Bart., in 1765, the original having been rebuilt in 1880, demolished by a runaway lorry in 1968, and again in 1980. The old memorial stone was badly damaged and is now in the parish church. Sir William was born just outside Alston and spent his youth in the town. He succeeded in becoming Lord Mayor of London in 1764 and erected the Cross and a covered market for the town in the following year.

Most of the buildings surrounding the Market Place date from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. With stone slab roofs, and walls of local creamy grey stone, which are sometimes rendered, these buildings give the centre of the town its special character and charm.

Before leaving the Market Place note how frequently outside staircases are used. This is a feature to be found throughout the town and developed for two possible reasons. Many of the town’s inhabitants kept cattle and housed their animals at ground level, with living accommodation above being reached by an outside stair. It is possible that other examples were created at the time of the population explosion towards the second half of the 18 th century whichh served to divide existing properties into two or more dwellings.

Notice also the shop fronts and joinery work in buildings around and above the Market Place which are of particular interest. Almost all are 19 th century and display a timber column with decorated head or capital and rounded arch to the windows. The doors with fanlights to many of the shops are of the same period. Look out for the former butcher's shop that retains its hooks and rails.

Walk uphill on the left hand side of the street until you are opposite the shop with bay windows. (2) This was originally a chemist’s shop – note the mortar and pestle with initials at the first floor window. The mystery is that there was no chemist in Alston in 1900 with the initials ‘JR’. To the side, leading off the Market Place to the west, is Kate’s Lane, one of the many back-courts in the town. This court and others leading off Front Street typify the town’s close-knit layout and provide many picturesque and unexpected corners.

Before continuing, it is worth noting that the car park where you now stand is the site of a block of buildings that housed the Sun Temperance Hotel, the old Youth Hostel, a drapers and a solicitor’s office, most of them with flats over. This block was demolished in the 1950’s.

A short distance uphill from the Post Office on the left is a mounting block. (3) These must have been a common feature in all towns, but this is the only one left in Alston. Note the tethering ring and hook.

On the opposite side of the street stands The Victoria Inn, built in 1901 to replace The Black Bull, which was in a dangerous condition with cracked, bulging walls. However, the teetotal movement was strong about that time and ‘The Vic’ was a temperance hotel. Notice the arched entrance that led to stabling and accommodation for carts and small carriages.

Continuing up Front Street, on the right hand side is Barclays Bank (4), a cornucopia of architectural details and incorporating red sandstone from the Eden Valley. A beautiful stained glass fanlight tells us that this was once the Carlisle and Cumberland Bank, while the reproduction of a datestone from a former building on the site has an interesting inscription and symbol.

Further uphill on the right, the Society of Friends (Quaker) Meeting House (5) is to be found. Built in 1732, it is noticeably smaller than the 19th and 20th century commercial buildings below. It was enlarged later and possessed a women’s gallery at ground level at the back, which is still intact.

Almost opposite is Alston’s Fire Station. Serviced by retained firefighters, it is one of the smallest in the country. The building, as can be seen from the inscription, at one time was the grammar school, rebuilt in the year shown on the datestone.

Higher up on the right hand side of the street, the former St. Paul’s Methodist Church is an arresting sight. Like Barclays Bank, it is an array of architectural features, again with red sandstone from ‘foreign parts’. After John Wesley visited Alston Moor in 1768, Methodism rapidly became popular with the lead miners. Built in 1863 to house a large congregation, St. Paul’s was a status symbol as much as a place of worship.

Walk along the alleyway to the left of St. Paul’s to the junction of the lanes, or lonnens, and Alston Moor opens out before you (6). To the south is the stark outline of Cross Fell, at 2,930 feet, or 893 metres, above sea level, it is the highest peak in the Pennine chain. On the opposite side of the valley is Park Fell, enclosed in 1337 by the Lord of the Manor, Robert de Veteriponte as a deer park. Signs of mining are evident, though in this instance for iron ore, which was exported mainly to the west coast of Cumbria for smelting. Look carefully at about eye level along the same hillside and traces of three or four limekilns can also be detected. Also visible is the A686 following the line of a road designed by Macadam.

Retrace your steps to the main street at Townhead, cross the road and walk to your right; the Police Station stands opposite. Built in 1850, it housed three cells and until 1994 it was home to Alston’s Magistrates' Court – at 1100 feet above sea level it was the ‘highest court in the land’!

On your left is Forge Cottage (7), the old smithy run by generations of the Little family, where a trip hammer was powered by the mill race. At the corner of the cottage beside the road, the hub of the water wheel is still to be seen and the wheel pit nearby is covered by planks.

If you choose to walk a few yards further up the Nenthead Road, the Fairhill Recreation Ground is across the road on the right with an information board about the dam, which is still to be seen, and water power in Alston.

Otherwise, walk down the short steep hill to Back o’ the Burn, where, in front of you, the cottages in the street form an attractive group. The centre of the street has been re-laid many times but the original flags outside the cottages and the rainwater culvert can be seen clearly. One of the out buildings on the left is a former slaughter-house, and, appropriately enough, the adjoining building was a tallow candle maker’s. The mill-race, which provided power for at least three of Alston’s mills (two corn mills and a saw mill), runs under the street at this point and can be heard to do so.

The large building on the right shows traces of its original purpose as a Methodist chapel, the precursor of St. Paul’s, as its name, Chapel House, suggests.

On the right at the end of Back o’the Burn is one of the prettiest houses in the town, Jaycott, with its outside staircase usually bedecked with flowers.

Back o’ the Burn, and the narrow alley of Pigeon Lane through which you now walk, used to be the main thoroughfare, and continues on to rejoin Front Street at what is still called the Potato Market. This parallel running of streets is typical of many border towns.

This is a good vantage point from which to see the variety of roof lines and roofing materials that gives the town some of its character.

Proceed downhill back to the car park, where it is worth noting the variety of street and pavement surfacing materials. Flagstones, cobbles and setts are used to a creative and practical effect on this steep gradient.

Ahead of you is a former corn mill, the High Mill (8), which is still in use but not for its original purpose. Here the Lancaster family were millers for several generations. There has been a corn mill on Alston Moor since at least 1315. The old mill wheel still exists in a narrow building to the left of the mill. The original wheel was installed by John Smeaton, one of the first modern civil engineers, around 1767. The wheel was powered by an overhead race, the water being channelled in leats on brackets along the side of the buildings, one of which is still visible from behind the Co-op.

Down the narrow street past the Turks Head Inn we enter the part of Alston called the Butts, which, as its name implies, is where the men of Alston practised their archery in the days before the houses were built.

The small square where you now stand (9) was the setting for the workhouse yard in a television production of Oliver Twist, when buildings were disguised and iron gates were hung across the entrance to the Market Place. Alston is not new to television; there were several earlier t.v. dramas before that, adaptations of Catherine Cookson stories. Also notice here the first of a proposed series of community ceramic plaques.

Further into the Butts, a narrow road known as Gossipgate leads off to the right, You may choose to follow this past the former Congregational Chapel and along the bank of the River Nent to a small waterfall known as the Seven Sisters.

Continuing through the Butts, look out for datestones on houses and blocked up first floor entries. The houses in the Butts are among the oldest in Alston. Dates of around 1617 in the town indicate the 1,000-year lease for the land on which the houses were built, rather than the buildings themselves.

Soon an entrance gate is reached looking into the former school yard of the Salvin Schools for Girls and Infants, (10) named after Reverend Hugh Salvin who provided the money for their construction in the 1840’s.

A little further down, at the end of School Terrace, is a ‘pant’ or standpipe (11), installed in its own stone shelter in 1817 as part of the public water supply. You may have noticed others around the town. For this scheme, residents of the town gave either money or labour to lay the supply to five such pants. They were not pumps, since they were gravity fed from the dam on the Fairhill Recreation Ground at the top of the town.

At this junction with Croft Terrace, built to house workers at Alston’s woollen mill in the early 19 th century, there is the option to go down the steps to Station Road and on to the South Tynedale Railway and other attractions at the Station, or bear left to continue the walk along King’s Arms Lane.

A few yards further on to the right is an excellent example of ecumenical co-operation, where the Catholic Church and the Methodist Church share premises in the former town jail, which was also used as stables, and, during the Second World War, as a canteen for Italian prisoners of war!

Kings Arms Lane joins Front Street. Cross the road to the Town Hall. Note the gothic style of this building, dating from 1857, where there was a Reading Room and a committee room for the Alston with Garrigill Board of Guardians and the Rural Sanitary Board, which then became the local Rural District Council until 1974. At Townfoot stands the Jacob Walton Memorial (12). Rebuilt in 2004, it is a memorial to a highly respected and influential Victorian lead mine owner. Its story is told on the adjacent plaque.

Note the houses at Townfoot which continue the vernacular architectural styles of the town.

Retrace your steps uphill and turn right into Church Road; follow this street until Grisedale Croft Community Services for Older Adults is reached. Within its grounds is the Grisedale Croft Community Garden (13), to which everyone is welcome. You may walk around and sit for a moment’s peaceful contemplation. Here is to be found another community ceramic plaque, made by a group of artists resident on Alston Moor.

Return to Front Street. Opposite you at the road junction, the house called Church Gates was a pub, and then a solicitor’s offices. It was built in the 17 th century and has a particularly romantic form of enclosed outside staircase, although this was built comparatively recently, about 1900. Church Gates forms part of the boundary of St. Augustine’s churchyard.

Crossing the road to St. Augustine’s (14), it can be seen that the present church is not contemporary with any of the surrounding architecture; its style and scale are in marked contrast to other buildings. Inside, the single-handed clock is particularly interesting. It was brought from Dilston Hall, near Corbridge in Northumberland. This was the home of the Earl of Derwentwater, whose estates were forfeit for his part in the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion. The clock was presented to the church in 1767 by the Commissioners of the Greenwich Hospital, the then Lords of the Manor of Alston Moor.

From the churchyard of St. Augustine’s the backs of the three-storey terrace of shops with flats over, that climb the hill to the Market Place, can be examined. A rounded staircase can be seen extending the height of one of the buildings. This was an unusual feature for a country town and was an early form of tenement in use during the 17 th and 18 th centuries by miners in the town. Remains of leaded and mullioned windows are also in evidence.

On returning to the churchyard entrance, note on one of the gates the crest of the Greenwich Hospital. Then turn left to follow Front Street uphill back to the Market Cross and complete this circuit of the town of Alston.