Seaham

Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham that grew up around a harbour on the North Sea coast of north-east England. It is twinned with the German town of Gerlingen. It has a grade I listed small church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century nave which resembles the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of the 20 oldest surviving churches in the UK.

1 History
2 Today
3 Seaham in the media
4 Famous faces
5 External links

[edit] History

Until the early years of the 19th century Seaham was a small 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 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 tonnes of coal being mined from the nearby mines, 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.

In 1928 production started at the last town colliery to be opened, Vane Tempest. Yet by 1992, after years of mine-related deaths and tons of excavated coal, all three pits (Dawdon Colliery, Vane Tempest Colliery and Seaham Colliery - known locally as "the Knack") had closed, a process accelerated by the miners' strike and cheap coal imports from Eastern Europe. The town, however, is slowly recovering, though the limited regeneration is not popular with all sections of the community who would prefer to see more jobs being brought to the area.

[edit] Today

Seaham has some of the best beaches in the country and has 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 Institute of Chartered Surveyors awards. Seaham Hall, where Lord Byron wed Anne Isabella Milbanke, is now an internationally-renowned luxury hotel, which also comprises a serenity spa. In homage to the town's link to Byron, the new multi-million pound shopping complex to be built in Seaham, which will provisionally include an Asda supermarket as well as Argos and Wilkinsons stores, will be named Byron's Place. It is due for completion in Spring 2007, and aims to revitalise the area, using the successful redevelopment of the central shopping district of neighbouring town Peterlee as a benchmark. It is hoped the Byron's Place project will bring in some much needed revenue to the area and generally offer the local population more variety and choice, especially as Seaham was beginning to resemble a ghost town with few local amenities or attractions of note.

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 to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, via Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees and Sunderland. Local bus services operated by Arriva and Go North East also provide access to the nearby towns of Murton, Peterlee and Houghton-le-Spring, as well as further afield to Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Durham city. These transport links have helped to bring more diversity to the town, with several new housing projects springing up in the early part of the new millennium attracting property-hunters from all over the north-east, eyeing comparatively affordable homes with good commuter links.

[edit] Seaham in the media

The rich mining history of the town was highlighted in the 2000 blockbuster film Billy Elliot which situated its plot in the 1984-5 miners's strike in the fictional County Durham town of 'Everington', but which displayed characteristics particular to East Durham pit communities such as Seaham and Easington Colliery - both towns feature as filming locations in the films, notably Dawdon Miners' Club, into which runs Billy's dad when he learns his son has won an audition at dance school. The town has also served as a filming location for the films Alien 3 (1991), and Life For Ruth (1961) and has recently been spotted in the BBC Three sitcom Live! Girls! Present Dogtown which premiered on the channel in Autumn 2006.

[edit] Famous faces

Between 1929 and 1935, the Member of Parliament for Seaham (the defunct constituency which covered the area now renamed Easington) was Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The constituency has long boasted fiercely strong Labour support, and at the 2005 General Election Labour MP John Cummings was re-elected with a majority of 18 636 votes, making it the second safest seat in the country. The renowned baritone Sir Thomas Allen was born in Seaham in 1944, and agony aunt and author Denise Robertson lived in the town for many years. Seaham has also produced several gifted footballers, many of whom have gone on to represent the team the vast majority of the Seaham populace support, Sunderland AFC. Terry Fenwick and Brian Marwood have moreover both gone on to play for England, with the latter carving out a post-playing career as a well-respected commentator and pundit for Sky Sports. Paul Gascoigne also lived in Seaham in the late 1990s whilst playing for Middlesbrough FC, and Martin Brammer of the 1980s band The Kane Gang was born in the Dawdon area of the town.