Qualla: Borrowdale https://qualla.com/borrowdale en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Borrowdale https://qualla.com/borrowdale Borrowdale: Introduction https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ Sometime around the year 1500, a Cumbrian shepherd noticed that a black rock from the fells above Seathwaite would mark a sheep cleanly and stay marked through rain. He had no idea that the rock under his thumb was, by accident of deep geology, the only deposit of pure solid graphite ever found anywhere in the world. That single quirk of Ordovician volcanism would build the village of Keswick five miles down the valley into the pencil capital of Britain. The valley where it happened is Borrowdale - a narrow green corridor of stone walls, slate cottages and steep wooded crags, climbing from the southern shore of Derwentwater into the heart of the Lake District.

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Borrowdale: The Jaws and the Waters https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ Borrowdale is shaped like a bottle. The wide end opens at Derwentwater, where the River Derwent slides out of the valley and into the lake. The narrow neck, two miles upstream, squeezes between Castle Crag and Grange Fell in a tight rock-walled defile known locally as the Jaws of...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-the-jaws-and-the-waters.mp3 0:06 2 full Borrowdale: Pure Black Rock https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ The Borrowdale graphite deposit is unique on Earth. Most graphite is impure and crumbly. The Seathwaite stuff was solid enough to be sawn into sticks - pure carbon, deposited around 400 million years ago in a single catastrophic geological event tied to the same Ordovician volcan...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-pure-black-rock.mp3 0:06 3 full Borrowdale: The Quiet Population https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ Borrowdale is not crowded. Despite welcoming a steady stream of walkers, climbers and tour buses, the civil parish itself recorded just 417 residents in the 2011 census, living in 128 households across the settlements of Grange, Rosthwaite, Seathwaite, Seatoller, Stonethwaite and...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-the-quiet-population.mp3 0:06 4 full Borrowdale: Walpole's Valley https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ In 1923 the novelist Hugh Walpole bought a house called Brackenburn, on the western slope above Derwentwater, with a view straight down into Borrowdale. He lived there until his death in 1941. The valley became the setting for his Herries Chronicles, a four-novel saga about a fic...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-walpoles-valley.mp3 0:06 5 full Borrowdale: What the Light Does https://qualla.com/borrowdale/ There is a quality of light in Borrowdale that is hard to explain to anyone who has not stood at Grange on a clear morning. The valley faces north, the surrounding fells are dark with bracken and stone, the lake reflects whatever sky it is given. After rain - and there is always ...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/t/y/borrowdale-wp/gcty-borrowdale-what-the-light-does.mp3 0:06 6 full