Settlingstones Mine

Overview

A lead mine turned single-mineral wonder: from 1873 to 1969, Settlingstones was the world's only significant commercial source of witherite, a barium carbonate mineral used in everything from rat poison to steel hardening.

History

Lead mining at Settlingstones is recorded from 1687, but the workings were abandoned before the end of that century, defeated by depth and water. Mining resumed around 1770, raising both lead and witherite, but it was only in 1873, when Settlingstones Mines Ltd was formed specifically to exploit it, that witherite became the mine's real purpose — the company having recognised there was more profit in the rare mineral than in the lead it had originally been sunk to reach. Between 1873 and closure in 1969 the mine produced around 630,000 tons of witherite product, making it easily the largest and most consistent witherite producer in the British Isles, and effectively the only substantial one in the world throughout that period. All plant was sold off on closure and the shafts capped, but this failed to prevent a collapse in 1971 near Ellen's Shaft, which destroyed the former mine offices — by then in use as kennels for the Haydon Hunt.

Geology

The witherite occurs in a single well-defined vein running roughly north-east to south-west through Carboniferous sandstones and shales, intruded by the dolerite Whin Sill, and has been proved along nearly a mile and a half of its length. The richest, most consistently witherite-bearing section of the vein averaged 10-12 feet wide — an unusually large and sustained concentration of a mineral that occurs almost nowhere else in workable quantity.

Workings

Underground workings followed the vein along its proven length, worked from a series of shafts sunk along its course, including Ellen's Shaft. Witherite was won alongside residual lead ore, and the mine's long working life let it be developed to a considerable depth as later shafts and levels chased the vein down.

What remains

No mineralisation is exposed at the surface today, and all underground workings are completely inaccessible — the shafts were capped on closure in 1969-70, and the site was further cleared and built over in places afterward.

Surviving structures are limited to a former mine building recorded in the early 2000s and traces of the mineral tramway; spoil dumps around the site still contain vein material of interest for study, even though nothing can now be seen in situ.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) Settlingstones (Witherite) — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Settlingstones Mine, Northumberland — GeoGuide (Scottish Geology Trust)

Record created: 21 August 2026 · Last researched: 21 August 2026