A GRIM MOOR TOWN
The Church at Alston
Almost lost among the myriad detail in the infamous book 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' a curious story is told of the quaint and pleasant town of Alston. The second footnote in the third chapter, 'The Stones of York', describe a sequence of events that happened in what it calls the 'grim moor town' in 1279. Briefly the events are as follows. A murdered boy is found hanging from a thorn tree outside the church door and The Raven King sends two magicians to animate the carvings above the door, allowing the statues to speak in an attempt to identify the murderer. Although the Virgin and Child comment upon every stranger who passes the murderer is never found. Because of this the statues, with their accompanying lion and dragon, continue to be animated long after the chance of ever finding the culprit has passed, giving the town an eerie reputation.
The Steep Cobbeled Street of Alston
Sadly no such magical miracles await the modern visitor. The connoisseur of magical places who ventures as far afield as this small town in search of the magic of the past and the memory of its dark, northern king will discover no speaking statue, no lion and dragon engaged in their eternal struggle. Of course Alston itself remains, standing high and isolated in the North Pennines, close to the Scottish border at the confluence of the River South Tyne and the Nent River, its cobbled streets climbing the steep side of the South Tyne valley.
The Pennine Moors the surround Alston
Lying 20 miles from the nearest town it is surrounded on all sides by heather clad moors and, at 1000 feet, claims to be the highest market town in England. It boasts an ancient market cross and a number of buildings dating from as early as 1611. It also has a church dedicated to St Augustine of Canterbury and it is known that a place of worship has stood on this site since the 12th century AD, well within the reign of the Raven King and it is entirely possible that an earlier Saxon church once stood here.
The Ancient Market Cross
However little is known of the church that stood upon the site prior to 1770, the church that must have stood when the Raven King sent his two magicians to investigate the death of one young boy, it is recorded only as being 67 feet long, 35 feet wide and consisting of a chancel, nave and north aisle, all of which were whitewashed inside. By the 1760's the church was in such a ruinous state that John Sharp, archdeacon of Northumberland, declared that it 'could never be effectually repaired' and recommended that it be rebuilt instead. This was swiftly done although the resulting church, built in 1770, was to last a mere 100 years before being torn down again and replaced in 1869 by the current structure. It could be suggested that the destruction of the old church in 1770 was not because of its poor state of repair, but instead, hundreds of years after the voluntary exile of the Raven King and in the new age of enlightenment, done to rid the town of its eerie speaking statues and to rehabilitate its superstitious reputation. The fact that nothing of the earlier church remains but for a few carved stones and a decorated water stoup would seem to indicate that the citizens of Alston wished to remove all traces of the original structure from their small town.
The Present Church at Alston
The current church differs completely from the church that must have stood in the 12th Century, if there ever was a carving of the Virgin and Child accompanied by a lion and a dragon, it is now lost in the mists of time. By the same token, if was ever a thorn tree upon which a boy hung it is no longer known and although the church is surrounded by a number of trees it would be unlikely that a thorn tree, either Hawthorn of Blackthorn, would survive so many centuries. It is as though the slate has been wiped clean, all traces of the ancient and magical past have been wiped away, clearing the ground for the rational illumination of the present day.
The Door of the Modern Church
However all is not lost, for by a curious coincidence in the cathedral in Carlisle, a mere 30 miles by road from Alston, a carved misericord shows a lion and a dragon engaged exactly as described for the church at Alston. A misericord, literally a 'mercy seat', is a small ledge on the underside of a folding seat that provides some small degree of comfort to the buttocks of those that are obliged to stand for long periods of prayer and are common features in medieval cathedrals. These misericords are often elaborately carved showing mythological creatures such as dragons, griffins and manticores as well as occasional grotesque and comical scenes that shed light upon the medieval mind, particularly it's attitudes toward women. These include the woman beating her husband and the female corpse being devoured by a creature resembling a boar. In Carlisle Cathedral the misericords date from the early 1400, a little later than the supposed door to Alston church, but never the less they would both be part of a tradition of medieval carving and the misericord can be seen to give some idea of how the carved creatures above the door at Alston appeared to the two magicians who enchanted them.
The Carved Misericord at Carlisle Cathedral Showing the Lion and the Dragon
It is a pity that so little remains of Alston's magical heritage for what would have given the town an unpleasant reputation in the 1770's would now be a huge draw for tourists visiting the sites of the Raven King's magic and would have enhanced both the town's reputation and economy. Nevertheless Alston retains a sense of the magical and the unearthly, and beneath the modern veneer of cars and shops it remains a town that seems to exist with one foot in the past and the other in fairy.
The Nent River as it Flows Past Alston
Whether it is the steep cobbled streets and the ancient buildings that give that impression of incipient magic, or whether it is the surrounding moorland with its green lanes that may once have been fairy roads is for the individual to decide. However it is more than possible to discern the sound of fairy bells in the babbling streams and waterfalls and feel the ancient legacy of the Raven King in the wide northern sky. It would be a dull and insensible visitor indeed who would fail to experience the magic of the past that still dwells high upon the Pennine moors within the town of Alston.
A Green Lane just outside Alston, Possibly the site of a Fairy Road
