Weardale

Weardale

Weardale is a dale, or valley, of the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, in England. The upper valley is surrounded by high fells (up to 2454 feet O.D. at Burnhope Seat) and heather grouse moors. Before climate change its winters were harsh and prolonged with regular snow, taken advantage of by ski-ers using a ski-run at Swinhope Head.

Wildlife includes an important population of Black Grouse along with the more usual upland birds. Sea-trout and salmon run the River Wear. Adders are encountered on the moors.

Past occupation or activity by man is attested by evidence such as the Heatheryburn Bronze Age collection of gold and other objects, now in the British Museum; altars placed by Roman officers who took hunting trips out from forts in present-day County Durham; and the use from Norman times onwards of "Frosterley Marble", a black fossiliferous layer of limestone occurring near that village, as an ornamental material in Durham Cathedral and many other churches and public buildings.

The dale's principal settlements include St John's Chapel and the small towns of Stanhope and Wolsingham. The River Wear flows through Weardale before reaching Bishop Auckland and then Durham, meeting the sea at Sunderland. Running roughly parallel to Weardale to the south is Teesdale. The Wear Valley local government district covers much of the valley. From 1894 to 1974 there was a Weardale Rural District. Upper Weardale lies within the parliamentary constituency of North West Durham.

In the c18 John Wesley visited the dale on a number of occasions and the valley became a Methodist stronghold. High House Chapel near Ireshopeburn is said to be the Methodist chapel with the longest history of continuous use in the world, and contains the Weardale Museum (not to be confused with the Lead Mining Museum at Killhope) which includes a room devoted to Methodist and Wesley memorabilia.

As a youth between the World Wars the poet W.H. Auden walked amid the wild countryside and the relics of the lead mining industry in and around Weardale and found these a lifelong source of inspiration. One place he visited, Rookhope, is also the setting of a ballad called "The Rookhope Ryde" which describes in some detail how in 1569 Weardale men drove out a party of cattle-raiders who had come down from the Roman Wall area .

Among contemporary works, Helen Cannam's "The Last Ballad" is a lively historical novel set in the dale in the early 1800s.

Mining History

Weardale was historically important for lead mining, and there is a lead mining museum incorporating the preserved Park Level Mine at Killhope [http://www.durham.gov.uk/killhope/usp.nsf/pws/killhope+-+Killhope+Homepage] (pronounced "Killup").

The first documented evidence of mining in the Northern Pennines dates from the 12th century, and records the presence of silver mines in the areas of what are now Alston Moor, just west of Weardale, and Northumberland. Weardale was, at this time a forested area, and belonged to the Bishops of Durham, who used it as a hunting preserve. The villages of Eastgate and Westgate mark the former entrances to this forest preserve (King, 1982).

Lead mining in Weardale reached its greatest levels during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the London Lead and Beaumont Companies dominated mining throughout the region. During the 1880’s the declining prices for lead forced both companies to give up their leases in the area, though the Weardale Lead Company continued lead mining and smelting until 1931. According to Dunham (1990), 28 separate lead smelting operations were active in the region during the height of mining in the 19th century, but by 1919 the last major commercial mine had closed.

At the North of England Lead Mining Museum at Killhope one can see a huge working water wheel, known as the Killhope Wheel.This was installed in the 1870s to power the crushing of grit in tanks in an adjacent building, so as to complete the separation of lead ore from worthless stone. The Museum also exhibits a fine collection of local minerals, as well as "spar boxes" - display cases made by miners to show crystal specimens they had themselves found.

Not only lead, silver and fluorspar were extracted from Weardale. Large amounts of ironstone were taken especially from the Rookhope area during the Industrial Revolution to supply ironworks at Consett and Tow Law. Local deposits of other minerals were also found on occasion.

Economy

After the closing of the lead mines, there were few sources of income for the local population left. However, in the lower dale round Stanhope and Frosterley carboniferous limestone was quarried on a large scale from the 1840s, when rail links created with Teesside and Consett enabled it to be carried to these places for use in the iron and steel-making processes there. This industry continued into and beyond the 1960s, its last and probably largest working quarry serving the Blue Circle cement works near Eastgate, set up in the 1960s. This site has now been decommissioned and the major industry in Weardale is now cattle and sheep farming. Only one mine, The Rogerley, is currently being prospected on a very small scale for mineral specimens.

Weardale had a railway open as far as Wearhead for a brief period from the 1890s, but the section of the line above Eastgate soon closed due to the decline of the lead industry. The remaining line was kept open by cement traffic until the 1990s, after which it was taken over by the Weardale Railway. Passenger services recommenced briefly in 2004, but in 2005 the project went into administration. Trains began running again in 2006, under a new ownership structure.

Currently there is a regular daily bus service from Bishop Auckland and Crook to Cowshill at the head of the dale; it is possible at certain times of day to take the bus further on to the Killhope Lead Mining Museum at those times of the year when the latter is open.

References

* [http://www.ukminingventures.com/ extensive overview of lead and fluorite mining, in Weardale and surroundings, history, technology etc]


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