Beauty on Your Doorstep
Part 1 - Walk from Noses Point in Seaham, County Durham, UK to Hawthorn Dene along the Coastal Path
In this series, I am discovering beauty spots right on my doorstep. It is amazing what you can find when you walk through your local area with your eyes wide open. Even in the busiest city you can find glimpses of tranquillity, interesting history and natural beauty. I want to inspire you to go on an adventure in your own neighbourhood. And send me some photos of what you find. I love seeing different places!
Each part of this series also contains all the information you need to recreate my trips. Hit me up for a coffee if you do come to Seaham! I'm always up for a meetup if I'm in town!
Time: Around 2 hours
Gear: Sturdy walking boots and several layers. Here in the North East, you can experience four seasons in one day. Sudden rain showers are common, even on the sunniest of days. So be prepared for muddy paths and wear layers that you can take off and on as the weather changes. Some water and a small snack are also a good idea.
Difficulty: Moderate (some very steep steps and muddy paths, unsuitable for disabled access)
I am very fortunate to live less than a five-minute walk from the stunning Durham coast. It is a natural gem with rugged magnesium limestone cliffs, wild sea birds, breathtaking nature and sweeping beaches.
Not so long ago, until the early 90s, things looked quite different here. One of the oldest mining areas of Britain, the coast was heavily polluted with mining waste and slag from the local steel works. Names like Chemical Beach and Blast Beach are reminders of these times gone by.
At its worst, the local coast extended a couple of miles further out to sea from all of the waste that was dumped straight onto the beaches. Some of the older residents remember scavenging for coal on the beaches to keep their houses warm.
In 1997, a massive effort started to clean up this part of the coast. The Turning The Tide programme (read about it at durhamheritagecoast.org) saw GBP 10 million invested in a major cleanup. As much of the hardened slag was chipped off and removed to give the beaches a chance to regenerate. The project was a total success and today the local coastline is flourishing.
A coastal path runs from Sunderland through Seaham and all the way to Hartlepool along the cliff tops. Today, I am taking you on a walk from Noses Point in Seaham to Hawthorn Dene along the coastal path in the direction of Hartlepool.
The walk takes you along the cliffs, past Blast Beach and on to Hawthorn Dene Meadows. From there, we branch out into Hawthorn Dene, a magnificent gorge of ancient trees, a river and rock formations, and make our way along to Hawthorn Hive Beach and back again toward Seaham along Blast Beach.
The walk starts at Noses Point. If you're coming by car, take the A19 and exit at Dalton Park. Continue on the A182 cliff road down into Seaham. You pass several industrial estates on your left. At the third roundabout, take the third exit toward Seahm and just shortly after, follow the brown tourist sign and turn right onto Noses Point. There is a car park to your left.
If you're coming by train, take the local branch line from Newcastle to Middlesborough (www.thetrainline.com/stations/seaham), then walk into town, down to the promenade and follow it past Byron Place shopping centre and along the main road, past the harbour until you reach Noses Point. The entrance is well signposted.
If you're coming by bus, take the Prince Bishops 65 from Durham (www.gonortheast.co.uk/services/GNE/65) to Byron Place, then walk along the promenade and up to Noses Point, or the Drifter 60 from Sunderland (www.gonortheast.co.uk/services/GNE/60b) and get off on the promenade opposite Noses Point.
I started my walk on the top bank. When you get out of the car, follow the mud path up the bank toward the main road. About halfway up you'll see a trodden path. Follow that with the road on your right and Seaham behind you.
Walk all the way along until the path bends down toward the main gravel path. Continue to your right. Soon you'll get to a fork in the path. Here, you can take either fork. Both meet up again very shortly. All along your route, you'll find lots of small side paths. They all lead in the right direction. As long as you keep the sea to your left, you're walking in the correct direction.
Along the coastal path, you'll find installations with interesting facts about the coast and its heritage. It's well worth reading them all as they give you nuggets of interesting background information.
The scenery is quite stunning. You can see across the entire bay, all the way to Hartlepool on a clear day. The cliffs are magnesium limestone. Geologist fans will have a field day here! You can spot sea birds and various native British plants and flowers. It is breathtaking indeed!
Keep following the path and you'll get to a railway bridge. Cross over and continue on the main path. You'll see Hawthorn Quarry to your right. Keep following the path around and don't turn off to the quarry. That's also an awesome walk, but we'll leave that for another day.
After a while, you get to Hawthorn Dene Meadows. This is a truly enchanted spot with bluebell woods and fairytale glades. In my mind, I could see Robin Hood and his merry men frolicking through this meadow, it really looks like a place back in time. I need to come here at night of a full moon sometime to soak up the atmosphere! Maybe I'll spot the little folk - who knows!
Hawthorn Dene and the Meadows are another awesome eco project (www.durhamwt.com/nature-reserves/hawthorn-dene). It is managed by the Durham Wildlife Trust and the National Trust. The dene is the second-largest in the country.
The dene itself is simply breathtaking. The Hawthorn Burn River lazily winds its way at the bottom of this steep ravine with ancient woodland and amazing limestone formations. You walk down steep stairs. Warning: these can get very slippery after heavy rainfall! Always take care with your footing. You walk across a narrow footbridge and up another set of stairs toward the majestic railway viaduct that is now towering above you.
At the fork in the steps, take the left path that leads you underneath the viaduct toward the sea. The first glimpse of the sea through the arch of the viaduct is simply stunning - well worth resting here a while and soaking up the view and atmosphere!
I walked this after several days of heavy rain and the steep path was extremely muddy and slippery. Be very careful here as the ground is treacherous. Slowly does it! I wished I had Frunza's mountain goat-like genes as she was happily skipping up and down the steep banks. A guy who passed me felt the same - he wanted to be my dog!
But once you get to the bottom it's all worth it! You're greeted by an unbelievable view of the river slowly trickling onto the beach and into the sea as you walk underneath the viaduct into a totally different world - emerging from the trees onto a lovely beach.
It was the first really warm day this spring and the beach was full of holidaymakers, kids and dogs. When I say full, I mean around three or four families. That's a lot up here in the North! After living in the South with its crowded beaches, I so appreciate this sparseness!
On the beach, you can see an old bunker from the war. These are dotted all along the coast here and are now mostly used by the local youth as gathering points. On the beach, you'll notice that there is a kind of "step" where the ground suddenly cuts off and becomes sand a few feet down. This is the edge where the old slag was broken off. You can still see how yellow and discoloured this ground is. It is hard to imagine how humans could simply pour their industrial waste onto the beaches until they were literally buried. But I guess that during the industrial revolution, nobody thought that far ahead...
I decided to have a break here and watched Frunza enjoy herself in the sand. She's a beach doggie alright! Give her sand, pebbles and sea and she's one happy mutt! I noticed some strange rock formations in the sand and on closer inspection, it turned out that somebody had covered almost the entire beach in rock designs, shapes, spirals, hearts and love declarations. Very endearing! Someone had also collected a lot of sea glass and left it on a rock as a little art installation.
Sea glass is very common in Seaham and surrounding areas and people travel from all over the world to collect it. It comes from an old bottle works that once stood in Seaham Harbour. When it was demolished, a lot of glass remained in the sea. Today, you can find glass nuggets the size of a quail's egg if you're lucky. I own one of those beauties myself. Sea glass really is quite beautiful.
I decided to move on and found the stairs in the cliffside to make my way back up. Beware! These stairs are merely wooden sleepers backfilled with earth and they're STEEP! If you have issues with height, you might want to focus firmly on the path ahead and don't look down!
After impersonating a mountain goat, I made it to the top where I was greeted by Frunza, who'd got up there ages before me and was looking at me in disgust - give your old mum a chance, girl!
The path now crosses the railway line again at a pedestrian crossing. It's a simple wooden gate. If a train comes, a red light shows. If not, it's clear and you can swiftly make your way across. On the other side, you're back in Hawthorn Dene Meadows. Take the path to your right and follow it along the railway line. The line should be on your right now.
Keep going up some stairs and through a gate until you get back to the railway bridge and cross back over. On inspection, I found that you could have also just stayed on the beach side of the railway crossing and followed the path there along the railway line. But I wasn't sure so took the safe route back.
You now follow the main path back for a while until you come to the edge of a field on your right. Here, you can turn right to get onto the smaller path along the edge of the cliff. I decided to follow this so as not to retrace my steps all the way. The path offers you some absolutely stunning views across Blast Beach again. I marvel at this sight every time!
At the end of the path, turn right and walk down some more stairs and onto Blast Beach. Notice the sign at the top that warns you about the stagnant pools on the beach. Because of the industrial past of this place, it is not recommended to get too close to the water as you can't be certain what's in it. Going by the yellow, sulphurous colour of the rocks, you'd do well to heed this warning.
Blast Beach is a wonderful place. The magnesium limestone cliffs are Jurassic and you get a feeling like a dinosaur could run past any minute. The sea is wild and loud - I love it! There is nothing more refreshing for the soul than the wild ocean! There is always a keen wind, even on a warm day and it all just makes you feel so alive!
Blast Beach got its name from the blast furnace that used to stand at the top of its cliff. Thankfully, that's all gone now. If you want an idea of what it used to look like, watch the film, Billy Elliot. It was filmed in and around my local area and in one scene you can still see the old smokestack before it got torn down.
This beach is pretty famous, having been featured in many movies, including Get Carter and Alien 3. Yes, the place was so polluted once that they filmed the opening scene on the prison planet here. Almost unimaginable now, but when you watch closely, you can see that it's Blast Beach because of the distinctive shape of the cliffs.
For me, the beach holds a special place in my heart as this is where I scattered my mum's ashes earlier this year at her own request. She also loves this place and wanted to be here forever. I gave her this last wish and now she's become part of the place - her soul lives on here. What a beautiful memorial! Well-chosen mum!
Walk until the end of the beach with the cliffs to your left and you get to the way back up. And this is the steepest one of all. It's an almost sheer incline with no steps. It takes quite some leg power to get up here.
At the top, turn right and follow the cliff edge. You'll notice name signs, flowers and other gifts all along the cliff rail. This is a place of remembrance. Locals can put up plaques on this rail and local benches to remember their departed loved ones. I love this idea so much - it beats any cemetery hands down! You go to the coast and take in the breathtaking sea views whilst remembering your dear ones. there's nothing better than that!
Now you have a choice. You can either walk around the little headland along the rail until you get back to the main path or you can cut up through the grass to the seating area that has been installed for you to enjoy. I love sitting here and do so often. It's so soothing for your soul!
Behind you is the second car park. Now turn right down the concrete path until you get back to the first car park where we started. Well done. This should have taken you around 2-3 hours, depending on how many breaks you've taken. You've seen some of the most beautiful scenery in the North of England on the way. If you need refreshments, you will have to make your way along the promenade into Seaham to the nearest pubs and cafes. Enjoy!
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