The Rise and Fall of Alum Production in Great Ayton

As I descend from Capt. Cook’s Monument, approaching Gribdale Terrace, the former whinstone quarrymen’s cottages gleam white, with Cliff Rigg rising behind them. Before me, in the centre of the photo is a range of sandstone buildings mapped as Bank House Farm on the 1853 OS Six-inch map, but an auction advertisement in the Yorkshire Gazette in 1860 suggests it may have been called Cockshawe Farm¹‘To Ironmasters and Others. North Riding of Yorkshire. Great Ayton in Cleveland. A Valuable Mineral Estate, Freelwld. To Be Sold | Yorkshire Gazette | Saturday 19 May 1860 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000266/18600519/082/0001> [accessed 11 April 2023]. This name also appears in the handwritten minutes of the Great Ayton Parish Council dated November 29th, 1898, listing all footpaths in the parish: “Cockshaw farm house to Gribdale gate.” This corresponds to the current Right of Way.

However, the main point of interest in the photograph is that Bank House Farm is believed to be the site of the boil house for the alum workings higher up Cockshaw Hill. According to the 1853 OS map, there was a direct channel from the workings towards the farm. The exact location of the boil house has not been determined. It may have been on the flattish pasture this side of the farm, which is currently partially occupied by a sewage pumping station, or on the actual site of the farm itself. There are a few earthworks but no archaeological work has been done. We are talking about alum production that occurred between 1766 and 1775, around ninety years before that first OS map was published.

It’s believed the boil house would have been a sizable building where alum liquor, produced high up the hillside through a complicated process of burning and leaching, would have flowed down to on a wooden channel. The liquid would then be boiled using coal from the Durham coalfields, to separate out solid impurities and to concentrate it. The concentrate would be left to crystallise in casks, which were broken open to crush the crystals. The alum crystals were transported away via carts and pannier teams, which caused road damage due to the heavy traffic²Ayton Banks Alum Works, GREAT AYTON, NORTH YORKSHIRE ISSN 1478-7008 Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI/26/2004. English Heritage 2004..

In the mid-1770s, the market value of alum declined while transportation costs remained high, in contrast to coastal works. However, alum’s versatility as a fixing agent for textile dyes, tanning leather, and in medicine, albeit with unfavourable outcomes, made it the first chemical industry.

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  ‘To Ironmasters and Others. North Riding of Yorkshire. Great Ayton in Cleveland. A Valuable Mineral Estate, Freelwld. To Be Sold | Yorkshire Gazette | Saturday 19 May 1860 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000266/18600519/082/0001> [accessed 11 April 2023]
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  Ayton Banks Alum Works, GREAT AYTON, NORTH YORKSHIRE ISSN 1478-7008 Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI/26/2004. English Heritage 2004.