Qualla: Weardale https://qualla.com/weardale 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/w/x/weardale-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Weardale https://qualla.com/weardale Weardale: Introduction https://qualla.com/weardale/ Photo credit Public domain. The word fluorescence comes from Weardale. When 19th-century scientists studied the bluish glow that fluorite crystals from this dale produced under ultraviolet light - a glow caused by trace europium in the lattice - they coined a new term for what they were seeing. Weardale fluorite from mines like Frazers Hush, Boltsburn, Heights, Cambokeels, Blackdene, West Pastures, Greenlaws, Billings Hill and Groverake is still considered among the world's finest. The dale that gave the phenomenon its name lies on the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, draining the high fells around Burnhope Seat (2,454 feet) down through Bishop Auckland to the North Sea at Sunderland.

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Image: Public domain

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/x/weardale-wp/gcwx-weardale-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Weardale: Bishops, Vaccaries, and a Failed Campaign https://qualla.com/weardale/ Photo credit Hodgsonge, CC BY-SA 4.0. Anglo-Saxon settlements existed at Stanhope and Wolsingham before the Norman Conquest. After 1066 the Normans extended farming up the dale, and by the medieval period the upper dale was cleared for vaccaries - the specialised cattle farms whose Latin name still clings to the land...

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Image: Hodgsonge | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/x/weardale-wp/gcwx-weardale-bishops-vaccaries-and-a-failed-campaign.mp3 0:06 2 full Weardale: Lead, Silver, and the Glowing Stone https://qualla.com/weardale/ Photo credit Mainlymazza, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lead mining in the Northern Pennines is documented from the 12th century, when silver mines worked the ground at Alston Moor just west of Weardale. By the 18th and 19th centuries the London Lead and Beaumont companies dominated the dale, with 28 separate lead-smelting operations ...

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Image: Mainlymazza | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/x/weardale-wp/gcwx-weardale-lead-silver-and-the-glowing-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Weardale: The Dale After Lead https://qualla.com/weardale/ Photo credit Hgt (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. When the lead and silver gave out, Stanhope and Frosterley turned to carboniferous limestone, quarried at scale from the 1840s when rail links to Teesside and Consett opened. The Eastgate cement works ran for decades; Lafarge closed its rail traffic in 1993 and the works themselv...

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Image: Hgt (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/x/weardale-wp/gcwx-weardale-the-dale-after-lead.mp3 0:06 4 full