Alton or Alveton, a village, a township, and a parish in Staffordshire. The village and township is most charmingly situated on the Churnet river. It has a station on the North Staffordshire railway, and a post office, under Stoke-upon-Trent. Acreage, 2243 (including 16 of water); population, 1089. The parish includes also the townships of Parley, Denstone, and Cotton. Acreage, 7534; population, 2064. The manor belongs to the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. Alton Towers, the seat of the Earl, is a splendid edifice in a variety of styles, built in 1814 and subsequently enlarged, and contains a magnificent hall, an armoury 120 feet long, a picture gallery 150 feet long, a chapel by Pugin with stained windows, and other rooms. The gardens connected with it are richly ornate, and contain a Choragic temple, a Chinese conservatory, an imitation Stonehenge, a pagoda 95 feet high, and a Gothic temple commanding an extensive view. The ruins of a castle of the De Verduns, of the time of Henry II, stand on a rock by the Churnet, 300 feet high. The Roman Catholic chapel of St John's, convent, and school, are situated near the castle. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield; value, £240. Patron, the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The church was partly rebuilt in 1830, restored in 1862, and again in 1885. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists, and a working men's club and reading room. There is a Roman Catholic college at Cotton and a Protestant college near Denstone.