FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[nurbo]

Hi all,

Yesterday I went to Alston Moor and Nenthead to field collect from the spoil heaps, the sun was shining, it was really hot and the scenery was amazing, I though Id post a few pics for you all to see, they are done on my phone so not the best pictures in the world but it gives a feel of the area, which is classic northern Britain, and the reason I moved back up here after living in different places for many years.

One thing of interest in this area is farm buildings with doors on the first floor maybe 4 metres up with no stairs to get up to them. This was so that if the marauding Scottish rustlers came to steal your animals you would be safe, people got into their houses via a ladder that was then withdrawn. I will add a picture of one of these next time I see one.

Anyway back to the mines ..... Most of the mines in this area are collapsed and inaccessible now, Nenthead Mine itself produces no material, it has a visitor centre and that doesnt even sell minerals!!! I was hoping to be able to add another nice Galena to my collection, I had even taken my credit card just in case of someting irresistable and expensive, but it was not to be, they are not allowed to remove any material at all from the mine site, its been classified as an SSSI or something.

We spent most of the day scratching around spoil heaps, which yielded some fantastic specimens, lots of quartz, highly fluorescent purple fluorite and some galena.

Ive only got 1 shaky picture of a few quartz that we found, I started soaking the mud off last night and when I get back from work today Im going to get an old toothbrush out and start cleaning.

I'll post some photo's of some of the finds tonight

Hope you enjoy the pics ...
db

[Peter]

N England is just beautiful! I have had the pleasure to visit 120 times the past 12 years! and every time between 5 and 10 days! so I spent a good deal of time there, searching many dumps primarily in the late evenings after work.

[Gail]

Nurbo, what an incredible treat to see these photos. I have always desired to travel to this area and you have confirmed that desire! Beautiful.
Thank you SO much.

[Joan Kureczka]

Nice weather they are having. Jesse just called, it's dry and sunny and in the 70's. Supposed to go back to normal gloom on Thursday. But the mine quarry is right now as dry as he's ever seen it.

Nice drive from St. John's over to Alston, but otherwise couldn't live as far out as Nenthead myself. Pretty isolated.

As far as selling minerals, the folks at Kilhope say there are all sorts of rules now imposed by the area being part of this "Geopark" thing. Must be "fair trade" etc, so they just don't do it.

[Joan Kureczka]

Oh, and the farm houses in the area are old but very few that old. Most are from the 1800s.

[nurbo]

Hello,
The weather here in the North of England has been very good for the last couple of days, but it has done little but rain for the last few weeks so the spoil was good for hunting, the rule around here is ... if you dont like rain, move.
Im glad the photos are appreciated, I'll do more next time we go hunting. Here are a few photos of some of the quartz we found they have as yet only been washed, do I acid bath the oxide off? or do I leave it on? I cant decide.
db

[garchin]

Hello Nurbo,
Nice reportage!
I had enjoyed reading it.