Alston
Alston in Cumbria stands on the River South Tyne. It has the distinction of being the highest market town in England, and since Roman times has formed the centre of a thriving area where lead and silver were mined: the seams however are now all worked out, trade much declined and the surrounding country, being too high to be usefully cultivated, is somewhat wild. Alston itself however, though small, is a handsome, stone-built place.
Described by our author nonetheless as a "grim moor town", in the year 1279 Alston was also the scene of a horrid murder. The body of a young boy was found hanged in a thorn tree in the churchyard, his death apparently witnessed by no human eye save that of his killer - but it was however shrewdly noted that the place of death was overlooked by a nearby statue of the Virgin and Child.
The people of Alston applied to Newcastle for justice, and the Raven King accordingly sent two magicians to awaken the statue (perhaps using magic similar to that of The stones of York) so that it might point out the guilty party. Alas, it seems the murderer was not someone from Alston as the statue apparently failed to identify him or her by name. From thenceforth however, whenever a stranger approached this vigilant statue took it upon itself to proclaim that the person in question was not the dead child's killer. Sadly as the Alston murderer was never found but the statue continued watchful, the town afterwards acquired the reputation of an eerie place.[3]
In the wake of the events of The stones of York in 1807, the former theoretical magician Mr Honeyfoot cited Alston as an example of a case where a statue's testimony was accepted in judicial evidence [3]. He felt this established a legal precedent for attending to the accusations of the statue at York Minster which claimed also to have witnessed the murder of a young female and which was laudably still anxious to have her killer brought to justice.[3]