Seahouses is a large village on the North

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

coast in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is about north of

Alnwick Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, inland from the North Sea ...

, within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Attraction

Seahouses attracts many visitors, mainly from the north east area. However national and international tourists often come to Seahouses whilst visiting the Northumberland National Park, Northumberland Coast and the Farne Islands. Seahouses also has a working fishing port, which also serves 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 operate, offering various packages which may include ''inter alia'' landing on at least one Farne, seeing seals and

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...

s, and hearing a commentary on the islands and the Grace Darling story or scuba diving on the many Farne 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''. The Seahouses Festival is an annual cultural event which began in 1999 as a small

sea shanty A sea shanty, shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional Folk music, folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large Merchant vessel, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessels. The term ...

festival. After a significant European funding grant from the Leader+ programme, in 2005, it has grown into a more broadly based cultural celebration. Kipperfactoryseahouses

There are claims that kippers were first created in Seahouses in the 1800s, and they are still produced locally to this day. Between 1898 and 1951, Seahouses was the north-eastern terminus of the North Sunderland Railway. Independent until its final closure, it formed a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

rail link between the village and Chathill Station on the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

.Wright, 1988 The site of Seahouses station is now the town car park and the trackbed between village and North Sunderland is a public footpath.

Governance

Seahouses is within the civil parish of North Sunderland and the

Northumberland County Council Northumberland County Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Northumberland in North East England. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority, having also ...

electoral division of Bamburgh. The parliamentary constituency is North Northumberland, represented by David Smith MP of the Labour Party.

Religion

Seahouses is in the archdeaconry of Lindisfarne, in the Diocese of Newcastle.

References

Sources

* Wright, A., (1988), ''The North Sunderland Railway'', The Oakwood Press, Locomotion Papers No. 36,

External links