Seahouses

Seahouses is a small seaside town on the North Northumberland coast. It is about 20 km north of Alnwick, within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is arguably the most popular holiday resort on the Northumberland Coast and attracts many visitors, catering for large numbers of both day visitors and longer stay holidaymakers each year, mainly from the north east area. During peak holiday periods and bank holidays, the town and its harbour area can be particularly busy. The town is also well known for its excellent fish and chips, available from a variety of restaurants and not forgetting Coxon's delicious ice cream, which can be purchased from their shop, or one of their various ice cream vans.

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 landing on at least one of the Farne Islands, seeing seals and seabirds, and hearing a commentary on the islands and the Grace Darling story.

The harbour is one of the main features of Seahouses. Not only is it attractive in its own right, with a variety of types and sizes of vessels, it is also the crucial base for all the many marine services - Farne Island tours, cruises to Holy Island, sea angling, diving, and commercial fisheries

Seahouses Harbour

Seahouses Harbour at Night

Seahouses Harbour - Evening Glow

Seahouses -A Working Harbour

Seahouses harbour - Trip Boats, Fishing Boats

Above the harbour is the RNLI lifeboat station, and inside and always at the ready is the 'Grace Darling', a Mersey Class vessel, with a length 38 feet (11.57 metres) and a top speed of 18 knots (20 mph). The station is open to the public and includes history of the station, memorabilia and an excellent souvenir shop.

Seahouses Lifeboat - the Grace Darling

Seahouses Inshore boat - Peter Downes

The beaches immediately adjacent to Seahouses are up among the top clean, wide, firm, safe, sandy beaches in the whole country: Northumberland is famous for them. There is no vehicular access onto the sands (the nearest is at Beadnell). Parking is limited to the dune roadsides north of the village or the grass verges on the village side of the golf clubhouse. Visitors can get away from it all, with not more than a dozen others even if it's 'crowded', saunter through the dunes and stake a temporary claim to their own acres of freedom.

Seahouses Beach by St Aidan's Dunes

Seahouses Beach - north of the town

The Olde Ship, Seahouses is a nautically themed pub above the tiny fishing harbour of Seahouses. The main saloon bar has tremendous character lit by stained glass windows and in winter by the welcoming glow of an open fire. Adjoining the main bar - is another - snug, the low beamed, "The Cabin". The pub is a veritable sea museum -The scrubbed wooden floor is constructed from pine ships decking, while the walls are festooned with a wide variety of nautical artefacts, model fishing boats and a replica of Seahouses' lifeboat, The 'Grace Darling'. Figure heads, diving helmets, pulling oars, fish baskets, branding iron, and lamps, all add to the unique 'feel' of circumstances that was only too prevalent many years ago.

Olde Ship Hotel Sign

Olde Ship Hotel - nautical decorations

Olde Ship Hotel

In some respects Seahouses does little to add to the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, being a working harbour and having amenities for the "day tripper", but it is the jumping off place for the Farne Islands where you can see an abundance of wild life all in its natural habitat - seals, puffins, arctic terns, guillemots etc.