Allendale Parish, 1848

ALLENDALE, a market-town and parish, in the union of Hexham, S. division of Tindale ward and of Northumberland, 7 miles (S.) from Haydon-Bridge, 9¾ miles (S.W. by W.) from Hexham, and 286 (N.N.W.) from London; comprising the grieveships of Allendale town, Broadside, Catton, High and Low Forest, Keenly, Park, and West Allen High and Low; and containing 5,729 inhabitants. The Town, which includes 1,217 persons, is irregularly built on an acclivity gradually rising from the eastern bank of the river Allen, over which a bridge was erected in 1825. The market is on Friday: fairs are held on the Friday before the 11th of May, on the 22nd of August, and the first Friday after the festival of St. Luke, for horses, cattle, and sheep; and a cattle show, which has been established within the last few years, is annually held. In the market-place are the ruins of a cross. The Parish derives its name from the river Allen, a small but rapid stream which rises in the hamlet of Allenheads, in East Allen, and Coalcleugh, in West Allen, and falls into the river Tyne about three miles to the west of Haydon-Bridge, where is a station of the Newcastle and Carlisle railway. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the lead-mines, which are on a large scale, producing upwards of 3,500 tons of lead annually. There are several works for grinding and washing the ore, and two extensive smelting-houses, one having an horizontal chimney 2½ miles long, with a terminus upwards of 780 feet above the ground-floor of the mill, and the other a chimney 1½ mile in length, and 700 feet above the ground-floor; in one of these smelting-houses twenty-one tons pass through the furnace weekly, and a considerable quantity of silver is separated. Limestone is extensively quarried, and there are also numerous quarries of stone of good quality for building.

The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £130; patron, T. W. Beaumont, Esq. The church is of stone, rebuilt in 1807. Within the parish also are four chapels, in the gift of the incumbent of Allendale, viz. St. Peter's, rebuilt in 1825, a perpetual curacy, of which the net income is £120; the chapel at Nine-Banks, partially rebuilt about 1816, a perpetual curacy, with an income of £124; the chapel at the Carr Shield, or West Allen High chapel, built in 1822, also a perpetual curacy, of which the income is £109; and that of Allenheads, described under its proper head. There are places of worship for the Society of Friends and Wesleyans. A free school for the children of parishioners is endowed with two tenements, bequeathed by William Hutchinson in 1692, producing a rental of £24; and with other premises and thirty-two acres of land, in Broadside, purchased with a legacy of Christopher Wilkinson in 1700, and yielding £38 per annum. Various other schools are connected with the different places of worship in the parish; and some small sums, the principal of which is an annuity of £10 from Shield's charity, are distributed annually among the poor. There are several chalybeate springs; and at a place called Old Town, about three miles to the north-west, are vestiges of an ancient intrenchment, of a square form, supposed to be Roman.