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The earliest records of Seaton Sluice and
Hartley date from 1097, when it was in the possession of the monks of Tynemouth.
Hartley was the name given to the whole of the area between the Brier Dene at
Whitley and the Seaton Bum on the Blyth coastal road.
Local historian
Charles W. Steel found that in the early years, apart from the Rivers
Tyne and Tweed, there were no natural harbours along the Northumbrian
coastline, so accommodate the growth in the coal trade it became a
necessity to develop new ports. Although Seaton Sluice was mentioned in 1565
in a drawn‑up list of Northumbrian ports, it was then just a natural
harbour.
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200 years ago Seaton Sluice became
the centre of a flourishing coal and glass trade, exporting to western
Europe and was the centre of greater commercial activity than any
other town on the North‑East coast. With ships of up to 300 tons
burden visiting the tiny harbour for the coal from the 30‑odd pits in
the district near Hartley township.
The New Entrance and Bridge
Over
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With the increase in trade over the years
at Seaton Sluice plans were drawn up in 1690 for a new harbour or
dock when the old basin was becoming inadequate to cope with the
trade of the port. Work on the new harbour started in 1761, and it
was eventually opened on March 20 1764, at a cost of £ 10,000.
A cut was made eastward through the solid
rock of the old harbour with sluice gates at both ends, thus
providing the harbour with an additional entrance and at the same
time forming a deep water dock, where vessels could be loaded by
spouts or cranes at any state of the tide and with its new sluice
gates gave rise to the name of Seaton Sluice.
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The original entrance to the
harbour was used in stormy weather, and the new cut or south entrance
was used when the weather was moderate. Both had piers which extended
some distance into the sea and on the approach of any ship a flag was
hoisted by the port pilots directing the vessel to the appropriate
entrance for the state of the weather and at night‑time a lamp of
burning coal was hung out as a signal.
Because there were then no steam
tugs to assist in towing and mooring, a line would be thrown on board
a ship and a number of willing village men would haul the vessel to
its moorings, for which duty they would he given a ticket entitling
them to a quart of beer each at one of the many local ale houses.
The harbour mouth was protected by
booms and every ship which entered had to pay five shillings for the
lifting of these booms, there was also drawbridge was built across the
cutting, which was later replaced with a bridge, which still stands to
this day.
Forty ships were regularly engaged
in the carriage of passengers and merchandise to London and many other
foreign ports, in 1785 the taxes paid to the Government on salt,
glass, and coal by this little seaport alone amounted to a staggering
£24,000.
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The Royal Hartley Bottle Works came into
being during the mid 1700s in order to consume the small excess
coal mined locally and covered an area of four and a quarter acres
being the most extensive of their kind in the United Kingdom
producing up to a million glass bottles a year.
Thomas Delaval who owned the bottle works
brought over skilled workmen from Hanover in Germany to teach the
art of glass‑making to the local workers and by 1763, three huge
brick cones had been erected, along with a large glasshouse
building.
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All the materials for glass
were at hand locally: black clay dug up from Seaton Links, plus, kelp,
coal and the local sand was of a remarkably light colour particularly
suitable for the manufacture of window glass.
The bottles were sent down to the
ships waiting in the harbour through a subway in large baskets which
were hoisted by a crane and then placed into the vessels' hold, where
they were packed by a large number of women. The women also carried
ale from the seven ale houses situated on the harbour bank to refresh
the ships' loaders and for the furnace men at the bottle works for
which they each received five shillings per week wages, and probably a
little liquid refreshment!
The bottle works flourished and by 1777 had
been extended with the erection of three more huge brick cones,
with the leading glass workers being paid 20 shillings per week,
whilst others were paid 12 shillings per week.
The coal trade of Seaton Sluice was ruined
by the appalling catastrophe at Hartley New Pit, on January 16,
1862, when 204 men and boys lost their lives when a support beam
for a pumping engine cracked and fell down the shaft, imprisoning
them in the mine without a hope of escape.
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Seaton Sluice Bridge over
Burn
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Following the closure of Hartley
Pit, Seaton Sluice fell into decline as a seaport with ships
eventually berthing at the new docks at Blyth, and the River Tyne.
Coal was never again shipped from the harbour, as a result of which
the bottle works suffered and by 1871, owing to the introduction of
modem production methods, along with sever overseas competition the
bottle works were finally closed down and the industrial life of the
village effectively ended.
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Today
Seaton Sluice has changed into a quiet resort which shows little sign
of its industrial past. The bottle works and ships have long since
gone, and the Seaton Burn trickles gently down into the once busy
little harbour where small fishing boats now occupy the moorings.
Many of the old inns and ale houses of the day have also disappeared,
but despite this Seaton Sluice still has many hidden secrets and
stories to tell!
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New Hartley village lies a
mile inland from Seaton Sluice, and about a mile to the north east of Seaton
Delaval was originally part of the parish of Earsdon, which
Charlie Steel
explained elsewhere was a northern suburb of Monkseaton and Whitley Bay
The area in and around Hartley
had worked coal since 1291, in 1595 Sir Ralph Delaval saw the
possibilities of opening out the Hartley coalfield an Industry
which due to the demand for coal had become a way of life as
more pits were sunk and more men were employed.
Early mining methods were
crude with work in the pits being hard and dangerous until 1760
with the development of engines and steam winders, that some
attempts at mechanisation were made in new mines such as Hartley
New Pit, or Hester Pit as it was more commonly known.
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Hartley New Pit - January 1862
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Sunk in 1844 it
became over the next 18 years one of the finest pits in the county,
with good working conditions and high output, but flooding problems
required the installation of a large and powerful pumping engine at
the pithead.
On Thursday
January 16th 1862 a cold frosty morning just before 10am,
the first relay of men about to start work at Hester Pit had already
descended into the shaft with others ready to ascend. With 31 down
another eight were still in the cage ascending the shaft, when without
warning there was a thunderous crash.
The beam
supporting the giant pumping engine poised above the shaft cracked
under the strain smashing through the ascending steel cage as it fell
killing five occupants instantly and leaving the other three seriously
injured.
The mangled
remains of the cage became wedged in the shaft completely blocking the
only entry or exit, leaving more than 200 men and boys imprisoned.
The scale of the catastrophe was immense, and as the news quickly
spread some of the most experienced mining engineers of the day
attended the scene to give advice and render assistance. With
progress being slow fears grew as the supply of fresh air had been cut
off and the risk of flooding in the pit increased.
News of the
tragedy attracted countrywide attention with reports of cries of the
entombed miners being heard from time to time, they finally ceased on
Sunday January 19th, but the rescue efforts continued
relentlessly day and night, in the vain hope that there would be
survivors.
At 4pm on
Wednesday January 22nd, William Adams of Cowpen Pit and
Robert Wilson of Backworth Pit managed to effect the first descent
into the workings and 20 minutes later returned to the surface to make
the grim announcement that all the miners below ground were dead.
The shaft being
in an extremely dangerous state and combined with a build‑up of
poisonous gases and flood water, meant that repair and ventilation
work had to be undertaken before any of the bodies could be safely
recovered.
In the meantime,
the work of preparing the coffins had begun and it was not until noon
on Saturday January 25th that the grim task of bringing
the first bodies to the surface began. As the constant succession of
the dead were brought up, it was evident that many of the men had
blank expressions, while others had signs of pain and suffering on
their faces.
Children had died, clasped in the arms of
their fathers, most were identified by their loved ones before
being wrapped in white winding sheets and coffined. The last body was recovered at 3.30am, on Sunday January 26th,
making a total of 199 men and boys who had perished in the bowels of
the earth. The five men who had died in the cage brought the total of
dead to 204.
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Procession at Hartley
Village
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Queen Victoria
expressed her grief, sorrow and sympathy in two telegrams and a
letter to the Hartley sufferers with every house in the village
containing at least one coffin and one unfortunate house contained no
fewer than seven.
An entire
community had been almost wiped out and from dawn on the day of the
great burial, a crowd estimated at 60,000 assembled at Hartley. The
main burial was to take place at Earsdon, but there were a few
separate burials at Cowpen, Seghill and Cramlington.
The crowd lined
the funeral procession route from Hartley to Earsdon, a distance of
some four miles with horse‑drawn carts and hearses carrying the
coffins of the dead. The first hearse arrived at Earsdon church before
the last one left Hartley village without a break in the procession
throughout the whole of that distance.
The burial ground at Earsdon churchyard was
inadequate to meet the needs of this solemn occasion, so a hole
was broken through the churchyard wall and a neighbouring field
taken over for the burials. Day and night, 50 gravediggers worked
non‑stop, even labouring on while some of the burials were taking
place. The largest grave was for 33 bodies which could not be
identified.
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St Alban's Church, Earsdon
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A granite obelisk
was later erected in Earsdon churchyard, engraved with the names of
all 204 men and boys who perished, the monument lists the names of 16
boys aged 12 years or under, and six who were aged between 12 and 14
years.
An inscription on
the monument states: Erected in memory of 204 miners who lost their
lives in the Hartley Pit by the fatal catastrophe of the engine beam
breaking. January 16th 1862," a fund of £70,000 was later subscribed,
which probably saved the relatives and dependants of the dead from
poverty and starvation.
This particular disaster was
directly responsible for the passing of an Act of Parliament that made
a second outlet from a mine a legal requirement. In the years that
followed, coal mining in the area eventually recovered, but the
terrible scars of this appalling tragedy remained along with the
broken support beam of the giant pumping engine, somewhere deep below ground.
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