Seaham
| Seaham | |
| County Durham | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NZ426496 |
| Location: | 54°50’24"N, 1°20’24"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 21,714 (2001) |
| Post town: | Seaham |
| Postcode: | SR7 |
| Dialling code: | 0191 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | County Durham |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Easington |
Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham, 6 miles south of Sunderland and 13 miles east of the county town, Durham.
The town has a small parish church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century Anglo Saxon nave resembling the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of the 20 oldest surviving churches in the United Kingdom.
History
Until the early years of the 19th century Seaham was a small rural agricultural farming community whose only claim to fame was that the local landowner's daughter, Anne Isabella Milbanke, was married at Seaham Hall to Lord Byron on 2 January 1815. Byron began writing his Hebrew Melodies at Seaham and they were published in April 1815. It would seem that Byron was bored in wintry Seaham, though the sea enthralled him. As he wrote in a letter to a friend:
| “ | Upon this dreary coast we have nothing but county meetings and shipwrecks; and I have this day dined upon fish, which probably dined upon the crews of several colliers lost in the late gales. But I saw the sea once more in all the glories of surf and foam. | ” |
The marriage was short-lived, but long enough to have been a drain on the Milbanke estate. The area's fortunes changed when the Milbankes sold out to the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, who built a harbour in 1828 to facilitate transport of goods from the industries locally encouraged (the first coal mine was begun in 1845). However, this harbour later proved inadequate to deal with the millions of tons of coal and the 6th Marquess commissioned engineers Patrick Meik and Charles Meik to reclaim land and extend and deepen the dock. It was officially opened in 1905. The harbour is of particular interest because it consists of a series of interconnecting locks rather than the more typical two wall construction.
In 1928 production started at the last town colliery to be opened, Vane Tempest. By 1992, however, all three pits (Dawdon Colliery, Vane Tempest Colliery and Seaham Colliery – known locally as "the Knack") had closed, a process accelerated by the UK miners' strike (1984-1985) and cheap coal imports from Eastern Europe. The pit closures have hit the local economy extremely hard, and Seaham sank into a depressed state in the 1980s and 1990s.
Many local families were affected by the tragic loss of eight men and one boy in the 'Seaham Lifeboat Disaster', when the RNLI lifeboat, the George Elmy, foundered on 17 November 1962. To commemorate the event, the new coast road was named George Elmy Lifeboat Way.[1]
Today
Seaham has fine beaches and easy transport links to the eastern side of the country. From 2001 most of the Durham coastline was designated as a "heritage coast" and Seaham beach was entirely restored. In 2002 the Turning the Tide project won, jointly with the Eden Project, the prize for Outstanding Achievement in Regeneration in the annual Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors awards. Seaham Hall is now a luxury hotel and spa.
In homage to the town's link to Lord Byron, the new multimillion-pound shopping complex, which now includes a supermarket and other chain stores, is named Byron Place. It aims to revitalise the area, using the successful redevelopment of the central shopping district of neighbouring town Peterlee as a benchmark.
In 2006, a survey conducted by Halifax plc revealed that Seaham is the top property price increase hotspot in England and Wales as average prices rose by 172% since 2003. The average price of £117,266 is still, however, well below the national average. It is believed this surge has been greatly helped by regeneration work in the area, and in particular the popular new housing estate East Shore Village, built on the site of the former Vane Tempest colliery.
Today, the town has a population of around 22,000, and is served by Seaham Railway Station, which lies on the Durham Coast Line, running from Middlesbrough (Yorkshire) to Newcastle upon Tyne (Northumberland), via Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees and Sunderland. When Grand Central Trains announced it was to run new rail links connecting Sunderland to York and London from September 2007, a stop-off at Seaham was not originally planned, but lobbying from local people has launched fresh interest in this possibility.
Seaham in the film and the media
- Alien 3 (1992): The opening scene was filmed on Blast Beach at Seaham
- Life For Ruth (1962) filmed in the town
In January 2007, it was announced that a consortium of investors were at an advanced stage in their quest to bring a multimillion-pound, fully equipped film studio to unused, private fields in the Dawdon area of the town. A planning application was expected in Spring 2007 but, as yet, the project has not proceeded.
Landmarks
In Dawden Dene to the south, beside the road to Dalton-le-Dale, are the remains of Dalden Tower, comprising the ruins of a sixteenth century tower and fragments of later buildings.
Outside links
- Seaham Marina Independent Information Website
- The history of Seaham and surrounding towns and villages, Great picture archive
- BBC Wear – Seaham stories and pictures
- Seaham Town Council
- Seaham history project
- Flickr Group, Images of Seaham
- History of Seaham Hall
- Seaham Harbour Online
- Seaham Lifeboat Disaster
- Tide times for Seaham from the BBC and Easytide.
- The George Elmy Disaster