Qualla: Foxdale Mines https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Foxdale Mines https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines Foxdale Mines: Introduction https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In 1877 a single set of mines on a small island in the Irish Sea pulled 186,019 ounces of silver out of the ground. The Isle of Man is 32 miles long. Foxdale is roughly in the middle of it, an unassuming village among heather and sheep. Yet for a stretch of the 19th century, what came out of the hill below it competed with Cornwall, Cumbria, and the great Welsh fields. Even with prices crashing at the end, the mines closed because they could be undercut, not because the ore was gone.

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Foxdale Mines: A Mineralised Stripe Across the Island https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Foxdale is shorthand. The Foxdale Mines were really a chain of shafts and workings running east to west along a highly mineralised zone, from Elerslie Mine at Crosby in the east to Niarbyl on the coast near Dalby in the west. Mining anywhere on the island is old, with evidence of...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-a-mineralised-stripe-across-the-island.mp3 0:06 2 full Foxdale Mines: Silver Years https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. By the late 19th century Foxdale was a serious operation. 11,898 tons of zinc blende came out in 1875. The 186,019 ounces of silver in 1877 followed soon after. By 1891, the Foxdale Mines produced ore worth £45,200. In 1900 the year's risings amounted to 3,610 tons, yielding £10,...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-silver-years.mp3 0:06 3 full Foxdale Mines: Killed by Geography, Not by the Vein https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Foxdale closed because the world got smaller. By the early 20th century it had become cheaper to ship ore from Spain and from Australia than to haul it up from the increasing depths under the Manx hills. Profits thinned. The Isle of Man Mining Company directors told the men that ...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-killed-by-geography-not-by-the-vein.mp3 0:06 4 full Foxdale Mines: The Spoil That Outlasted the Industry https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Audits of the closed sites found roughly 400,000 tons of lead and zinc spoil heaped at the former pit heads of Laxey and Foxdale. The Beckwith mine, taking its name from William Beckwith, was one of the named workings within the chain. For decades, those spoil heaps were the most...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-the-spoil-that-outlasted-the-industry.mp3 0:06 5 full Foxdale Mines: Walking the Workings https://qualla.com/foxdale-mines/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. What survives at Foxdale today is mostly landscape. Engine houses lie ruined among gorse. Stone walls trace foundations of buildings that no living person remembers in use. The 22 miners who held on after 1911 are footnotes in a story that once employed thousands. To stand on the...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/foxdale-mines-wp/gcss-foxdale-mines-walking-the-workings.mp3 0:06 6 full