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Last modified: March 02, 2004

New Hartley & Seaton Sluice

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seaton Sluice Bridge over Burn

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.

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!

Hartley Pit Disaster

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.

Hartley New Pit - January 1862

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 16^th 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 19^th, but the rescue efforts continued relentlessly day and night, in the vain hope that there would be survivors.

At 4pm on Wednesday January 22^nd, 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 25^th 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 26^th, 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.

Procession at Hartley Village

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.

St Alban's Church, Earsdon

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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