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Page 187:-
summit of which is a view of vast extent. I descended along the side, and had a most dreary view of a black tract, and some poor collieries: came to a narrow vale, cultivated on both sides, and watered by the Tyne, here an inconsiderable stream arising out of a fell a few miles to the south. I reached
Alston Alston Moor, a mine, and market-town, consisting of a number of small houses covered with flags, built irregularly, and extending lengthways up the side of a hill. This manor had been at different times the property of the Veteriponts. In the reign of Henry V. of John de Clifford; in that of his successor, of Thomas Whitlow, who granted it to William Stapleton and his wife. Mary, co-heiress of that house, conveyed it to a second son of Sir Richard Musgrave of Hartley-castle. It afterwards devolved to a Hilton, son of that Lady by a first husband. His descendants possessed it till the time of James I. when Henry Hilton of Hilton, esq. sold it to Francis Ratcliff baron of Dilston near Hexham in Northumberland, in whose house it continued till the attainder of the unfortunate James earl of Derwentwater in 1715. The estates of that Nobleman in this county are extremely rich in lead ore. It appears by the Moor-master's books, as related by Dr. Burn, that in three years, viz. 1766, 1767, and 1768, the mines produced sixty-one thousand eight hundred and thirty byngs ALSTON MOOR.
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