Seaham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the town of the same name in New South Wales, Australia see Seaham, New South Wales
| Seaham | |
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| Population | 21,714 (2001) [1] |
|---|---|
| OS grid reference | |
| District | Easington |
| Shire county | County Durham |
| Region | North East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | SEAHAM |
| Postcode district | SR7 |
| Dial code | 0191 |
| Police | Durham |
| Fire | County Durham and Darlington |
| Ambulance | North East |
| UK Parliament | Easington |
| European Parliament | North East England |
| List of places: UK • England • County Durham | |
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 situated six miles to the south of Sunderland and thirteen miles east of Durham City, and is twinned with the German town ofGerlingen. 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.
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[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. As by far the town's main industry, the pit closures have hit the local economy extremely hard, and Seaham slunk into a depressed state in the 1980s and 1990s through mass unemployment and lack of skills. The town is barely recovering and the limited regeneration is not popular with all sections of the community who would prefer to see more jobs being brought to the area.
A little known piece of history saw Seaham involved in the infamous Manhattan Project. When searching for a suitable testing ground for the Trinity test, Seaham was considered as a possible 'Ground Zero' but ultimately lost to the White Sands Missile Range which had more character.
[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 Institution 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 Wilkinson stores, will be named Byron's Place. Work started in September 2006 and is due for completion in Autumn 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 with few local amenities or attractions of note.
In 2006, a survey conducted by Halifax revealed that Seaham is the top property 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 new housing estate East Shore Village, built on the site of the former Vane Tempest colliery, which has proved very popular with buyers.
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. When rail company Grand Central Trains announced it was to run new rail links connecting Sunderland to York and London from May 2007, a stop-off at Seaham was not originally planned. However, lobbying from local people has launched fresh interest in this possibility and it is believed phase two of the Wearside to London link will include consultation on whether a stop at Seaham will be viable.
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, Durham, Darlington, Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough. 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.
Seaham also is home to Seaham School of Technology. The school has been victim to serious regeneration in recent years and is planned to be demolished and replaced in the coming years.
[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 the BAFTA-nominated Life For Ruth (1962) starring Janet Munro and Patrick McGoohan. The town has recently been spotted in the BBC Three sitcom Live!Girls! present Dogtown which premiered on the channel in Autumn 2006. According to the February 11, 1999 edition of the Sunderland Echo, scenes from the 1998 box-office hit Saving Private Ryan were also going to be filmed in Seaham, but Government intervention moved production elsewhere.
According to Tom McNee's 1992 portrait of the town The Changing Face of Seaham: 1928-1992, St. John's church was used as the setting of a 1985 service recorded for BBC Radio 4. Also, (McNee, 1992) a Channel 4 documentary profiled the town in 1991. St. John's imposing tower forms a focal point casting a shadow over Church Street, the town's main shopping parade.
In January 2007, it was announced that a consortium of investors were at an advanced stage in their quest to bring a multi-million pound, fully equipped film studio to unused, private fields in the Dawdon area of the town. A planning application is expected in Spring 2007.
Seaham rarely threatens the headlines of the national press, but controversy surrounded the town's Aldi supermarket in 1999 when it was announced the store's manager had been sacked because he was HIV-positive. The reason offered by the chain for the dismissal was that other staff felt uncomfortable around him and his condition could lead to a downturn in sales. After initiating court proceedings under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the manager reached an out-of-court settlement with the company in April 2000.[1]
[edit] Notable people
Between 1929 and 1935, the Member of Parliament (MP) 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.
Seaham has also produced several gifted footballers, some of whom have gone on to play for Sunderland AFC, the team the vast majority of the local populace support. Terry Fenwick and Brian Marwood, moreover, went on to play for England, with the latter carving out a post-playing career as a well-respected commentator and pundit for Sky Sports. Gary Rowell, now a popular match summariser on Magic 1152 is one of only three post-war players to score 100 goals for Sunderland. Paul Gascoigne also lived in Seaham in the late 1990s whilst playing for Middlesbrough FC.
Other notable residents include:
- Renowned baritone Sir Thomas Allen was born in Seaham in 1944
- Martin Brammer of the 1980s band The Kane Gang was born in the Dawdon area of the town
- Peter Burdon, former chief executive of Thorntons, was born at 10 Maureen Terrace in 1960
- Agony aunt and author Denise Robertson lived in the town for many years
