Seaham is a lovely seaside town in County Durham, situated on the Durham Heritage Coast, 6 miles south of Sunderland and 13 miles east of Durham. The town grew from the late 19th century onwards as a result of investments in its harbour and coal mines. Mining started in Seaham in 1849 and continued until the mines were closed in 1993.The Harbour was man made, cut into the cliffs so that coal from the nearby mines could be transported by boat to neighbouring towns and cities. 

Today, the town is clean and vibrant, with lots of small shops catering for the holiday maker and a bustling marina and harbour. 

The beach and sands are very popular and a great place for the visitor looking for somewhere to relax and enjoy a stroll along the water’s edge. 

Seaham was home to many Bottle works and glass making factories during the Victorian and Edwardian eras and boasted the largest glass bottle works in Britain – ‘The Londonderry Bottle works’, operating from the 1850s to 1921, where they produced up to 20,000 hand-blown bottles every day, in different colours and designs including hand crafted bottles, perfume bottles and household glass, all of which were distributed across the world. During the manufacturing process they would dump large amounts of waste glass straight into the North Sea, resulting in making Seaham a popular place to look for ‘sea glass’ which has been washed up along the shoreline for last 100 years.

On the sea front along the Terrace Green, adjacent to the war memorial stands the imposing figure of ‘Tommy’ a soldier from the First World War. The 9ft 5ins tall steel sculpture was commissioned to commemorate the First World War centenary and installed in May 2014 and today forms an integral part of the war memorial as well as being a popular meeting place and picnic area.

The Harbour area was completely redeveloped in 2013 following the demise of the mining industry during the early 1990’s, resulting in a new marina and harbour side cafes and retail outlets. 

Within this area lies the East Durham Heritage and lifeboat centre, formerly the lifeboat station. There had been a lifeboat station at Seaham from 1870 until 1979 when it closed.  

Today the heritage centre homes ‘the ‘George Elmy’ lifeboat which operated from Seaham between 1936 to 1950 and is a story within itself. I would strongly recommend a visit to find out more about this boat and its courageous crews who served on it. There is also a life-size memorial to all those who served at the lifeboat station on the harbour walls.