Seaton Carew - History

History

There is evidence that the area was occupied in Roman times as vestiges of Roman buildings, coins and artefacts are occasionally found on the beach. Later during the reign of Henry I, Seaton came into the possession of Robert De Carrowe and the settlement changed its name to Seaton Carrowe. In medieval times salt was extracted from sea water by evaporation and ash from the fuel used to remove the water was dumped on North Gare and now forms a series of grass covered mounds on the golf course. A Gilbertine priory or cell to Sempringham was established in the Seaton area although so far no trace has been found. In 1667 a gun fortification was built on the promontory of Seaton Snook to defend the mouth of the Tees particularly against the Dutch—remnants of these fortifications can be seen today.

Seaton Carew was a fishing village but grew in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a seaside holiday resort for wealthy Quaker families from Darlington effectively founding Seaton Carew as a seaside resort. Many stayed at the rows of stucco houses and hotels built along the seafront and around The Green—a modestly handsome turfed square facing the sea. The Quakers had been going since the sixteenth century arriving by horse and carriage, or stagecoach and latterly by railway for the miles of golden sands and sea bathing.

In 1867 a hoard of Spanish silver dollars were revealed in the sands following a heavy storm. In 1874 Dr. Duncan McCuaig founded the Durham and Yorkshire Golf Club in Seaton Carew with a 14 hole course on coastal land to the south-east of Seaton Carew—later the club changed its name to Seaton Carew Golf Club. Four holes were added in 1891 and in 1925 further work was carried out with the guidance of renowned golf course designer Dr. Alister MacKenzie.

In 1882 Seaton Carew was incorporated into West Hartlepool and the museum of Hartlepool records that a small riot involving Irish labourers took place in the late Victorian era, when townsfolk mistook them for Fenian agitators. Just to the north of Seaton was the works of the West Hartlepool Steel & Iron Company. In 1898 Mr. Christopher Furness and Mr. W. C. Gray, of West Hartlepool purchased the Stockton Malleable Iron Works, the Moor Steel and Iron Works, and the West Hartlepool Steel and Iron Works to form the South Durham Steel and Iron Company, becoming part of the British Steel Corporation in 1967. The West Hartlepool Steel and Iron Works is thought to have closed in 1979.