Seaham & Thereabouts

It may seem strange to begin this blog with a few lines and pics of a non-Newcastle venue. But it just so happens that the day after I launched this site my wife, Angie, and I visited Seaham for the first time in many years. So I thought I'd give you a little report on our adventure on Sunday 20th March 2022. 

We parked at the Seaham Hall Beach Car Park to the north of the town, and walked south, past the harbour & promenade, then down to Nose's Point, along Blast Beach, then onto Hawthorn Dene. We followed the Durham Heritage Coast Trail ... until we missed a turn and ended up scrambling around under Hawthorn Dene Viaduct (a little unnerving due to my dodgy ankle). So we turned around and retraced our steps back to the car. A lovely and (mostly) sunny day - though it was a Spring Tide, which gave us a bit of excitement when dropping down to the lower prom for a short time!

As we were nearing the car, we took a little diversion up Church Lane to have a quick gander at the parish church of St.Mary the Virgin and Seaham Hall. The light was starting to draw in so I couldn't really take any more photos ... but here's a selection of a few other highlights of the walk:

Here's 'Tommy', the famous statue by Ray Lonsdale erected in 2014, and paid for by local donations. Sorry about the slightly skewwhiff shot of the plate below.

The sign says it all in the pic above. What a hive of activity this place must have been in times gone by.

Next we have the northern descent down to Blast Beach from Nose's Point. 

And here we have the view south from beach level. The rough-looking edge on the beach is what's left of the 'lip' of industrial slag which used to reach far out to sea.

The picture below shows the view looking the other way. Nose's Point reaches out to sea, and the 'descent' mentioned above is in the centre.

Another pic follows. Very dramatic, even on a calm day.

Here's a good idea of how Blast Beach looks today. Strewn with a mixture of industrial waste and weathered bits and bobs from the cliffs. About two-thirds of the way down the beach is a curious lonely stone stack, opposite which is a set of steps up to the cliff-top.

On the way back, we caught sight of this on the top of Nose's Point. I remember seeing something similar in Stanhope.

Here's two halves of the helpful info panel on Nose's Point.

There's been a fair bit of sprucing-up of the front in recent years, that much is clear; and it all looks rather nice. Plenty of opportunities for ice creams, coffees and fish 'n' chips, too. Well done - "you've all done very well", as young Mr Grace used to say.

[note: I mention Blast Beach and Nose's Point in my book The Great North-East: An English History Tour, Vol.1. I'm ashamed to say that I wrote the same before I'd ever visited the twin site - but nothing I said in the book is contradicted by what I saw on my trip. It is an extraordinary spot, if one considers what the place used to look like. Fact: the site was so barren in the early 1990s that it was used for the opening scenes of Alien 3]