Alton Castle

Alton lies N. of Uttoxeter, in the picturesque valley of the Churnet, which flows into the Dove river at a point about three miles S.W. The ruins of the ancient castle, which is called Alveton-by-Erdeswick, and of which there are but scanty remains, stand on a high cliff on the opposite side of the valley to the magnificent modern mansion or castle of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot, called Alton Towers. In the reign of Stephen, or Henry II., Alton, or Alveton, descended to an heiress Roesia, who married Bertram de Verdon (temp. Edward II.); William Verdon died s.p. male, and his daughter Joan married Thomas, Lord Furnival. He held Alton in the partition of his lands (39 Edward III), and had issue Thomas Furnival, Lord of Hallamshire, whose daughter and heiress brought Alton to her husband, Thomas Nevill, Lord Furnival, second brother of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland; the property again passed by his daughter Maud to John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury (see SHEFFIELD), the great leader of the English in France early in the fifteenth century. His eight immediate descendants to John, tenth earl, were all Earls of Shrewsbury and Lords of Alton, but in the Civil War of that century, this castle, which commanded the junction of the valley of the Churnet with that of Alton Glen, was destroyed.

The superb pile built opposite to it was begun by Charles, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, and his nephew and successor, Earl John, built it from the designs of A. Welby Pugin, architect, giving it the name of Alton Towers. He died in 1856, and his successor, Earl Bertram, died soon after, unmarried, after whom the late Henry, third Baron Talbot, established his right to the earldom and the lands.

The ruins consist now merely of fragments of the outer walls of the ancient castle; they are of considerable thickness, enclosing a small court, and stand upon a natural perpendicular rock over the river, to which the ground descends rapidly; below is a small mill. The remains indicate a stately and strong fortress. In the “Description of England and Wales”, vol. viii., is a view of the ruin as it appeared in 1769. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)