Qualla: Cragside https://qualla.com/cragside en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Cragside https://qualla.com/cragside Cragside: Introduction https://qualla.com/cragside/ Photo credit Derek Voller, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1878, an arc lamp came on in a picture gallery at Cragside in Northumberland. The current was generated by water - a stream flowing through a series of artificial lakes that William Armstrong had had carved into the hillside, driving a turbine in a powerhouse below. Two years later, in 1880, Joseph Swan replaced the arc lamp with his new incandescent bulbs in what Swan himself called 'the first proper installation' of electric lighting anywhere. Historic England describes Cragside as the first house in the world to be lit by electricity derived from water power. The house belonged to a man who had made his fortune building artillery. He used it to build a future.

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Image: Derek Voller | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/gcyd-cragside-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Cragside: Armstrong's Idea of a Country House https://qualla.com/cragside/ Photo credit Prosthetic Head, CC BY-SA 4.0. William Armstrong made his money at Elswick Works on the Tyne, manufacturing hydraulic machinery, cranes, and naval guns. He was an engineer first, a baron second. The house at Cragside, designed by Richard Norman Shaw and extended over decades, was Armstrong's working laboratory...

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Image: Prosthetic Head | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/gcyd-cragside-armstrongs-idea-of-a-country-house.mp3 0:06 2 full Cragside: Seven Million Trees https://qualla.com/cragside/ Photo credit Dave_S., CC BY 2.0. When Armstrong bought the original site, it was bare moorland. By the 1880s the gardens and grounds had grown to about 1,700 acres, with his wider estate including agricultural holdings extending to 15,000 acres according to Henrietta Heald's 2012 biography, and over 16,000 acres...

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Image: Dave_S. | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/gcyd-cragside-seven-million-trees.mp3 0:06 3 full Cragside: The Iron Bridge and the Clock Tower https://qualla.com/cragside/ Photo credit Derek Harper, CC BY-SA 2.0. Northwest of the house, the glen of the Debdon Burn is crossed by an iron bridge that Armstrong designed himself and had cast at his Elswick Works in the 1870s. It is a Grade II* listed structure. The National Trust restored it and reopened it to the public in 2008-2009. The gard...

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Image: Derek Harper | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/gcyd-cragside-the-iron-bridge-and-the-clock-tower.mp3 0:06 4 full Cragside: Modern Appearances https://qualla.com/cragside/ Photo credit Chris Gunns, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cragside has had a busy second career on television and film. It featured in an Open University Arts Foundation course, in Jonathan Meades's documentary series Abroad Again in Britain, on BBC One's Britain's Hidden Heritage, on Glorious Gardens from Above, on Great Coastal Railwa...

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Image: Chris Gunns | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/y/d/cragside-wp/gcyd-cragside-modern-appearances.mp3 0:06 5 full