Seahouses
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Map sources for Seahouses at grid reference NU2132
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Seahouses is a large village on the North Northumberland coast in England. It is about 20 km north of Alnwick.
Seahouses attracts many visitors in the summer, and is the only place in that area which presents much of the traditional British seaside town in its makeup, with several cafes, fish and chips restaurants, arcades and so on. It also has many pubs and several hotels including the confusingly named Bamburgh Castle Hotel which commands fine views of the harbour and whose garden is partly built over the old limekilns which border the harbour. The limekilns could be the reason for the railway link which at one time ran from the village to join the main line. North Sunderland on the landward side of the village has existed since the Bronze age and at least one guide book refers to Seahouses as 'its fishing village'. Seahouses has become more prominent now and North Sunderland is a quiet backwater.
Seahouses is famed for its picturesque and much-photographed harbour. Not only is this still a working fishing port, but it also plays an important part in the tourist trade, being the embarkation point for visits to the Farne Islands. From shops in the town and booths along the harbour, several boat companies compete, offering various packages which may include inter alia landing on at least one Farne, seeing seals and seabirds, and hearing a commentary on the islands and the Grace Darling story or scuba diving on the many Farnes Islands wrecks. Grace Darling's brother is buried in the cemetery at North Sunderland. He died in 1903, aged 84. The current Seahouses lifeboat bears the name Grace Darling.
Seahouses is the home of the business which claims to have invented kippers.
Between 1898 and 1951, Seahouses was the northeastern terminus of the North Sunderland Railway. Independent until its final closure, it formed a standard gauge rail link between the village and Chathill Station on the East Coast Main Line (Wright, 1988). The site of Seahouses station is now the town carpark and the trackbed between village and North Sunderland is a public footpath.
[edit] Reference
Wright, A., (1988), The North Sunderland Railway, The Oakwood Press, Locomotion Papers No. 36, ISBN 0-85361-335-4
[edit] External links
| Major settlements in Northumberland |  |
|---|---|
| Alnwick | Ashington | Bamburgh | Bedlington | Berwick-upon-Tweed | Blyth | Cramlington | Haltwhistle | Hexham | Morpeth | Newbiggin-by-the-Sea | Ponteland | Prudhoe | Rothbury | Seahouses | Wooler | |
