A rare Weardale locality

At Oxford show last weekend Geologist Nick Eastwood was selling a small batch of fluorite specimens he has collected in the 1970s when he was working in the Dale.

The specimens are from the Red Vein Lead Mine (or Level) a separate portal onto the Red Vein near Stanhope Burn and West Pasture Mine near Stanhope.

The Red Vein Mine situated here was first worked as a lead mine in 1764 and then ironstone was mined by the Weardale Iron Company from 1847 with lead as a by product, employing some 70 men at it’s height. 

The portal still exists today but collapsed about 20 meters in, so Nick's little stash might not be great but all that might be seen for a while.