Beer-Alston
BEER-ALSTON, formerly a borough and market-town, in the parish of Beer-Ferris, union of Tavistock, hundred of Roborough, Tavistock and S. divisions of Devon, 14 miles (N.) from Plymouth, and 211 (W. S. W.) from London. This place, about the year 1295, received the grant of a weekly market and an annual fair, which have been for a considerable time discontinued. It is pleasantly situated within a mile of the navigable river Tamar, but consists only of a few mean houses. Some lead-mines, opened in the reign of Edward I., produced abundance of ore, from which a great quantity of silver was separated; after a long period of disuse they were again worked, but their produce had greatly diminished. A portreeve and other officers are annually chosen at the court leet of the lord of the manor, which is held under a large tree, where also the election of the parliamentary representatives took place. The elective franchise was conferred in the 27th of Elizabeth, from which time the borough returned two members until its disfranchisement by the act of the 2nd of William IV., cap. 45. There was formerly a chapel of ease to the rectory of Beer-Ferris. The Independents and Wesleyans have places of worship.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.