Britain's classic mineral localities sit in a handful of orefields worked from the 1700s: Cornwall and Devon for copper and tin, the Caldbeck Fells for lead secondaries, Weardale for fluorite, Derbyshire for Blue John, the Mendips for the lead-manganese suite, and Leadhills and Wanlockhead in Scotland, which named 4 species.
- CornwallTwo centuries of copper and tin mining left Cornwall with a mineral suite few regions anywhere can match, and a set of names that still set prices.
- DevonDevon shares Cornwall's geology and a good deal of its mineralogy, with tungsten at Hemerdon and a copper-arsenic story of its own.
- The Caldbeck FellsA small area of northern Lakeland that produced some of the most distinctive lead secondaries in Britain, campylite above all.
- Weardale and the North PenninesThe North Pennine orefield produced British fluorite at a quality that competes internationally, and one mine made it fluoresce in daylight.
- DerbyshireThe Peak District orefield gave Britain its only ornamental fluorite and a long history of lead mining behind it.
- The Mendip HillsA short range of Somerset limestone that gave its name to a mineral and produced a lead-manganese assemblage found almost nowhere else.
- Leadhills and WanlockheadTwo villages either side of the Lanarkshire–Dumfriesshire border that between them are the type locality for several species.