A church filled with history and mystery

Mar 7 2005 By Tony Henderson, The Journal

Delavals' drive for progress

Today Seaton Sluice is a quiet residential enclave facing the sea.

But from the late 18th Century it had been a bustling centre of industrial activity with mining, salt and glass- making, brewing and copperas manufacture.

There were around 200 annual ship movements from the port.

And the Delaval family was the driving force behind most of what went on.

It was Sir Ralph Delaval who improved the small natural harbour by building piers at the mouth of the Seaton Burn in the late 17th Century.

He also installed sluice gates which dammed the burn. When they were opened and the water was released, the surge dredged the harbour of silt and sand which was swept out to sea.

The north side of the harbour is now dominated by a weather-eroded hill, formed by ballast dumped by ships using the harbour.

On the opposite side of the harbour is the Octagon, built in the mid-18th Century as the harbour office and thought to have been designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Seaton Delaval Hall.

The nearby King's Arms pub was built at the same time as the harbour overseer's house.

The harbour works had been carried out to underpin the export of coal and salt but as business grew it proved increasingly inadequate.

The solution, by Sir John Delaval, was pretty dramatic. Between 1761-64, a 30ft wide and 900ft long channel was driven through the rocks of the headland, with lock gates at either end.

This provided a new harbour entrance and a deep water dock.

The work was supervised by John's brother, Thomas, an engineer who had studied in Hamburg and Dresden in Germany.

In 1762-63 Thomas helped set up a glass factory, called the Royal Hartley Bottle Works.

It turned out 10,000 bottles a month and featured three large cones.

In 1777 the works made 145,000 bottles which were mostly shipped to London and Europe. By 1788 it was the largest such works in the country.

It closed in 1871 and the cones were demolished in 1896.

The last cargo of bottles, bound for the Channel Islands, was carried by the ship Unity which was the final commercial vessel to use Seaton Sluice harbour.

A small footbridge spans the harbour cut and takes walkers on to Rocky Island, where what was once a coastguard look-out station stands.

Rocky Island was populated by 73 people in the mid-19th Century but this community had vanished by the start of the First World War.

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