Seaton Carew 1994 – many Stockton kids in the 1950s used to go to Seaton as part of the Annual Working Mens Club – Holiday trip. A real treat for us kids who thought Seaton was such a long way to go for the day. Photographs courtesy of Alan Davis, Perth. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Picture Stockton Archive 
I vaguely remember those beeline buses someone mentioned, a cream colour? Seaton Carew was mainly served by Hartlepool corporation buses the number 1 and 12 most terminated there but some went to Port Clarence terminating at the transporter. Upon the privatisation of the national bus company United started going there from Hartlepool with their hoppa buses plus Cleveland Transit had a summer service to Seaton Carew from Stockton via Billingham which I think was the only service bus ever, apart from diversions due to road works, to use the Seal sands Link road? Northern also ran a summer service which if I recall came from Newcastle Haymarket bus station (owned by United)via Chester-le-street and I’d guess Durham City.
LikeLike
Does any one know the location of wreck hole?
LikeLike
The wreck can appear after heavy seas have washed the beach sand away, the sand returns with the following tide’s allowing it to disappear for two or more years. It was a coal collier probably from Seaham Harbour that ran aground, it’s cargo was rescued by locals with echo’s of Whisky Galore expeditions out to the wreck with prams and carts. The last I heard vandals had cut away the steel bits from it which was a pity. This was an illegal act because this site is designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 as the site of a vessel lying wrecked on or in the seabed and on account of the historical, archaeological or artistic importance of the vessel, any objects it contained ought to be protected from unauthorised interference. It’s possible there are two wrecks in the area, The ‘Granite at North Gare’; 8 died, and the wreck Doris, Seaton 1930, 9 sailors saved. During dark nights with a full moon, several locals have reported seeing the ghost of a monkey called Mademoiselle Parlez-vous, scampering about the beach and this wreck searching for its baby which it’s been claimed was washed ashore in the area.
Name: SEATON CAREW BEACH (shipwreck) List Entry Number: 1000077
Seaton Sands, Seaton Carew, Hartlepool. Competent Authority: Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority Ltd. Latitude: 54.65845853. Longitude: -1.18011914
National Grid Reference: NZ 52990 29572. Date first designated: 16-Jul-1997
LikeLike
We used to get the beeline buses they used to run double deckers to Seaton Carew from outside the Mayfair cinema at the bottom of Lanehouse Road, Thornaby when I was a child in the fifties loved the Big Dipper and the funfair playing on the sands paddling in the sea seaton has a great beach eating homemade sandwiches for lunch then with pop jugs of tea for the adults then fish and chips before the bus trip home for happy tired children great times I have taken my grandchildren to Seaton a few times apart from the funfair and Big Dipper not being there it hasn’t changed much still a good day out if the weather is kind hot and sunny like my memories of our trips to Seaton, Redcar, Saltburn and Whitby good days good memories
LikeLike
I can only echo all the other remarks on here. If we went from Thornaby to Seaton Carew with my mother she always took the bus to Middlesbrough Town Hall, we walked past Isaac Hintons food emporium and continued past the station with Winterschladens on the corner, and another 500 yards we had arrived in Middlesbrough very own ‘Lego Land’, the wonderful transporter bridge. And a penny ride across the River Tees to the Haverton Hill bus terminus. On warm days the queues here for the Seaton bus could be 50 yards long, so my mother, who was always an impatient woman who wouldn’t wait for the next bus, took us to play around the banks of the Tees, and in particular ‘the Salt Brine Pits and Ponds nearby. I once found a frog in the grass there and took it to the salt ponds ‘to set it free’, the poor thing, ‘I later learnt the water was poisonous to aquatic life and hoped it climbed out in time’.
Most days we got to Seaton Carew okay, and had wonderful summer Sundays there, I seen to recall the wood ribs of a sunken ship sticking out of the sand which always attracted the curious. The bus shelter shown was always busy on Sunday’s with Teesside trippers, and a day on the beach with the pot of tea and hired cups was a treat. All that needs to be said is Seaton beach has got few equals in the North of England, and can give Blackppol a run for it’s money.
LikeLike
Has anyone got any pictures of the Seaton Carew roller coaster? I believe it was around in the early 50’s
LikeLike
Did you ever find any roller coaster pics? I am interested in amusement parks – when did the Seaton Carew one close?
LikeLike
Hello,
I have enjoyed looking at the pages and comments about Seaton Carew. We often went there as children in the 1950`s and I have wonderful memories of golden sand, sandwiches with sand in, the fair ground and roller skating rink. The exciting part for me was waiting by the Transporter bridge for the bus to arrive to take us there. There were crowds of people with children. The smell of sea air as we passed green fields along a winding road…..and then saw the clock tower. I went back to see what the Transporter Bridge was like these days, perhaps it was over 12 years ago? The Port Clarence (?) side was so sad looking. I am wondering if things have changed?
I was also saddened to see that the clock and `all` had gone, just a beach with a sign saying No Dogs Allowed. Is that still the same? or perhaps it has been re-developed?
My biggest shock was the huge oil refinery? How did that happen? I would have thought it was a place worth protecting after we, as children breathed in what the ICI used to send out. My friend lived in Haverton Hill (I lived in Billingham). There were days when we couldn`t leave her house because of the chemical smog. We risked it one day. When we got to Stockton our tights had little holes in them……Oh those were the days : )
LikeLike
When I was at Seaton yesterday the clock tower and buildings were all still there, the oil refinery was much further down towards Port Clarence, and except for the fun fair being gone it is all much the same as it used to be, and still has a great stretch of beach, past the north gare I remember visiting my friends house boat, not much has really changed except the addition of those hideous wind turbines off the south gare.
LikeLike
For those of you who are interested in Seaton Carew and would like to see some photo’s early 1900’s and 60/70s there is a site on Facebook created by Hartlepool people, called The History Of Hartlepool In Images, with photo’s which cover places all over Hartlepool. It is really interesting if you come from the area, and quite entertaining reading some of the comments, photo’s posted daily.
LikeLike
I am a Seatonian, born and bred, and lived both on and just off Station Lane and watched the shire horses pulling large wooden carts dripping with water and laden with either sand or maybe even sea coal up to the Station. I took shelter under the Sycamore trees that lined the lane in a storm and visited Woodcroft orphanage many times. I never knew if these children were orphaned by the war or why they were there, I just felt lucky to have a loving home to go home to. The whole of the sea front, the Green, the funfairs the beach and its proms were my playground from 1945 – 1962 when I left school to find a job elsewhere – always few jobs there. The iconic Bus shelter and the South Shelter were hiding places during play and one of my sisters even remembers a baby being born in the ladies toilets at the foot of the clock tower – she wonders where they are now! Mac’s magic was a great attraction, and so was the roller skating rink where my sisters learned to do wonderful twirls in their white skating boots whereas I could hardly skate backwards. I watched the trippers pouring out of the station and walking down Station Lane with their buckets & spades and picnics. Whilst we as a family would trudge right over the golf course to the Slag Wall and enjoy our day there in the ‘blue lagoon’ which the incoming tide created and with the old concrete pill boxes stranded and fallen across the sandy dunes. My parents belonged to Seaton Players and when they had a production, then Ken Tyzack would bring his Gold Medal ices and an urn of tea to serve at the interval in the old Temperance Hall building. I would play in all weathers, and the sea and the beach provided much to write about in school essays – the sea in all its moods. I’d collect shellfish and the odd crab from Longscar rocks and play in the house now of ‘Panama’ fame with my friend whose mother was the village hairdresser. The post war years showed only small changes until they built RAF houses in Station Lane and then a large estate followed those. My children were later taken to the new park by my parents to play on the swings that were never there when I was a child. The houses on the sea front have never changed, nor the shop fronts very much, still the same outlines, just the people I knew in them, now gone. My father watched the Nuclear power station being built with great interest since his job had been to provide the Hartlepools with gas which was a by product of the Coke Ovens at South Durham Steel & Iron works. Forty years of industrial smoke, and now only a green mound to show where it stood. Church Street had funny looking houses to my eyes which were only opened when I read that they had been built as holiday homes for the Quaker visitors a hundred or so years before. So many things did my young eyes take in, but never really understood then. Stories of the shipwrecked ‘Duck’ and the looting of its cargo as it lay stranded on the beach up at the Staincliffe end. The 50’s heydays when Teddy Boys strutted their stuff in their long colourful draped coats and thick crepe soled shoes, so many sights, and sounds too from the juke boxes in the fun fairs and the smell of fish and chips. All these childhood memories just evoked and awakened by these photos. Wonderful thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
6 years later!! Lovely to read your memories Celia. Lots of things the same still in Seaton. They’ve painted the Parish Hall where we were Girl Guides and I don’t think we’d be able to play rounders on the vicarage lawn as half of it is now used for parking. My brother often talks of your sister Angela. “She was a good boat hand”.
Best Wishes, Elizabeth Harrison
LikeLike
I was born in West Hartlepool and also loved going to Seaton in the 50s and 60s. I wonder if anyone would be interested in editing and updating Wikipedia, as the entry, sadly brief, says there were no improvements to Seaton Carew in the 20th Century after the 1921 War Memorial! Sacre bleu! Hope someone can help with this… I have only childhood memories, but was sad to see this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The sand dunes, which comprised the last bit of the minefields, can just be distinguished in the background of the top picture.
LikeLike
As a child Seaton Carew was my favourite place. I too used to go there on the sunday school trips from St Marys. One of the trips stands out in my memory because my father was an engine driver and on this particular trip he was driving the return train from Seaton to Norton and he let me and my friend, Tommy Devey, travel on the footplate with him. It was a great experience for two young lads. Unfortunately Tommy was in trouble from his mother whe he arrived home, he had new light grey trousers on and he had been sitting on a box on the footplate and had a big black stain on the seat of his pants.
LikeLike
That walk from the Station was only memorable for its length to a young lad and his sister carrying a bag with a Lowcocks bottle of lemonade and sandwiches. We went on Church outings from St Mary’s Norton each year, a long crocodile of kids who all stood and gaped as we saw the beach open up in front of our eye’s. Seaton Carew was a magical place to us then and even today my young grandchildren love to go there for the sand and sea. The whole family often arrive there together on Boxing day or New Years day to walk the beach and blow our heads clear of the jollifications the night before. Well wrapped up and dogs running it is still exhilarating to me all these years later. If memory still holds good we got a bag of Sparks cake and a shilling to spend at the fun fair, (you could get a lot for a shilling back then), it was pure joy to us kids and never seemed to rain either, being outdoor kids we never felt the cold. The train journey to and from Seaton starting at Norton Station was also part of the excitement, I must have been a budding engineer even then. Seaton Snooks Seal Sands as far as I know was wired off because it was a Mortar and Hand grenade throwing range during and after the war. The Army and Home Guard used the area to throw grenades and even some of us older Army Cadets who had passed the Certificates ‘A’ parts one and two got to throw a few. You took your grenade with a seven second fuse and moved from hole to hole as you moved to the throwing pit. In the pit with an instructor you were warned of the dire effect of hitting the back wall with your arm as you threw which would result in the grenade going straight up in the air and landing back in your pit, rapid scramble to get out, hence the seven second fuse, normal grenades had a four second fuse. I never saw it happen although the thought made you nervous. Grasp the grenade with the release bar in the palm of your hand, raise the grenade to face level, hook thumb through pin ring, pull pin with left hand up so the pin was visible, right hand with grenade back and low, legs apart then throw as far as you could and head down wait for the bang. There was possibly unexploded ordinance on the seal sands, I know we did find the odd round on the 1914-18 shooting range at Norton tips, so even today there may be odd things they missed in the clean up. Seaton has fond memories for me as a kid and as a granddad, sun sand and sea what more could kids want and that includes second childhood I assure you.
LikeLike
I remember the mine fields quite clearly, we tried our hardest to set one off by throwing bricks into the field. Happily, we never hit one. I was about 8-10 years old so it would be about 1960 at the time. I never found out if the mines were still there but the warning signs certainly were. If memory serves me correctly it was on the left hand side as you go down the Zinc works road. Can you remember the mini Stonehenge type rock pile close by, it looked man made and very ancient consisting of a single very large stone perched on top of three others. Where did it go to?
LikeLike
Does anyone rememeber the minefields at Seaton Carew? I think the last was in a sand dune near the beach entrance. The dune was capped with scabby grass and surrounded with coils of rusty barbed wire. I think they were still there until about 1950
LikeLike
Judith Milner remembers taking golf balls to golfers for money. Did you ever collect empty lemonade bottles from the beach and collect the return money from the shop? The things we used to do for pocket money! My uncle Jack used to go shrimping off longscar rocks, up to his waist in water, pushing a huge net under water. I used to follow with a bucket to fill with the shrimps. I remember him boiling them at South End, Seaton and selling them to the people in the car park and caravan park at the back of his house. Fresh dressed crabs where prepared in his kitchen as well. I used to work in the fun palace at South End for pocket money, giving out change and unjamming machines. Went to Holy Trinity school in 1951 in Seaton.
LikeLike
Reading the comments on this picture gave me some cause for amusement. Complaining about the walk from the station. My family used to walk from the station then past the cricket club and across the golf course to the Zinc works at Seaton Snooks. Then onto the beach where there were a number of house boats. We used to visit a houseboat which belonged to the Davis family who lived in Bute Street in Stockton. Then after a day at the beach swimming etc walk back to Seaton station to catch the train back to Stockton.
LikeLike
Oh yes I remember Seaton very well. I actually worked on the big dipper during school holidays. I also remember the sand dunes where we used to play a lot, and the gourse bushes where we used to hide run out to steal the golf balls (whoops! I mean find the golf balls) I also remember the time when mods and rockers would fight each other. I have fond memories of Seaton including the famous joke shop and the penny arcades. I used to walk from Torquay Avenue, that”s way past the train station. What a great childhood I had there.
LikeLike
I spent many holidays at seaton as a child I used to go to my uncles farm for the summer and spent many hours on the beach there. I used to play with a lad and his sister Benjy and Margaret Joblin. My uncle Bill worked and lived on the farm with his family. I remember my mum playing Housey Housey at the fair.
LikeLike
My grandparents lived in Berwick Street, Seaton Carew right up to the late 1970s. My two sisters and I loved visiting them, going on the sands, walking right up to the slag wall (my grandad used to say: When I die, don”t bother burying me, just chuck me off the slag wall…). The last time I visited there I was shocked to see that the Green shelter had gone. The other bigger one, near the crazy golf, went years ago. I hope they never get rid of the bus-station and clock tower which always means Seaton Carew to me. I once got locked in those toilets under the clock and my grandad had to come into the Ladies, to his great embarrassment, and climb over and get me out.
LikeLike
To Ken cook, I used to be on Seaton beach most weekends, (my mum had a caravan there)catching crabs and shrimps, in the late 60″s I remember the magic shop and the funfair it was great in them days, we used to go paddling in the pond on the golf course to find balls and sell them back to the course for a few pence.
LikeLike
I have a post card of Seaton Carew Golf House which my grandfather sent in November 1914. He was stationed there in the army and writes that he slept in the Golf House on nights when he was off duty. Is anyone able to tell me more about this period of Seaton Carew”s history?
LikeLike
On visiting this site I was struck by how lovely it was to hear so many good memories of Seaton. As someone who left many years ago but was born and raised there, from a family which goes back in Seaton for at least two hundred years, it warms my heart to know that not only me, but other people remember it as not always being the sad, dirty, run down place it is today. Why is there no European regeneration money being utilised in Seaton? It was once a place that people were proud to visit.
LikeLike
South Gare – This area at the entrance of the Tees on the south side of the river is known affectionally to many as Paddy”s Hole! Why it is known by this name and who Paddy was (or is) I have no idea. It is accessed from the roundabout at the Coatham end of Redcar, passing the village of Warrenby and the steel works. Apart from the many fishermen who operate from there, the area is also popular with local photographers. On one side of the road at Paddy”s there are are the famous fisherman”s huts and on the other a lighthouse and pilot boat station. I don”t know the name Blue Lagoon but surely Seal Sands is on the north side of the river Tees, not the south!
LikeLike
Roy Parkin, Dont want to upset you but you have got mixed up with North and South Gare, The South Gare is on the Redcar Side of the River and the North Gare is on the Seaton Carew Side of the River, the breakwater was known by all as the Slag Wall or the Snooks,when we were kids our dad used to take us to the Blue Lagoon ie:Snooks to our uncles House boat,but we had to time the Tides cos we had to get off before high tide, and I was wondering how many people can remember the House boats been there, there were a few on greetham creek up till a few years ago
LikeLike
South Gare. – Always called it the South Gare always walked to the South Gare with me dad whilst on day trips to Seaton Carew, 1950’s/1960’s, year in and year out. But the truth was and still is I have never been there, as the South Gare is at the entrance of the Tees on the south side of the river, must have been the only name they had for it back then, someone must know, now it is the Blue Lagoon, Seal Sands and the like. There was no drinks in cans and a multitude of food products in poly bags, just refundable bottles, (always taken home) and food products wrapped in paper and if any did blow away, a couple of days rain and it was gone. The long (well for the want of another word) Gare, which protruded out in to the sea that performs part of the entrance to the river was always full of fishermen, can’t remember seeing any fish though. Remembering the fisherman cursing as they quite often lost hooks and weights after snagging, my brother Howard said at the time a lot of lead down there dad. Well many years later he must have remembered this, because he did dive the area and retrieve many lead weights. This blog I put together for my book/ booklet on Boxing Day last year and after searching the big wild wide web last night thought that I would add to it and tell you all. I went on to the Tees Archaeology sight, having heard so much about the site off this site. I wondered why you crab, whelk and winkle eaters all loved to go there, (don’t mind the little bogies in a winkle but I draw the line on anything bigger). there was an aerial view on there and what a safe, beautiful and secluded place it looks, very nice. That’s all. Roy.
LikeLike
One of my pet hates when I was a youngster was that long walk from Seaton Carew train station, down Seaton Lane to the sea front and even a greater dislike was the trip back at the end of the day. Redcar was fine, further away and the fare cost more, but fine. One of my greatest delights was many years later when I took three of my children on the same journey, they being borne here there and every where, one Germany, one London and one in Swindon and many places in between, they did not know the area at all. To see the look on their faces when we came out at the end of Seaton Lane was priceless and brought tears to my eyes, plus the fact my wife Jackie comes from Hampshire, she not knowing the area, made it that much more special, as she did not know where we were going either. The best money ever spent on rail fares and the use of footwear ever. Roy.
LikeLike
Funny Postcards there are plenty, even now outside of seaside trinket shops on those spinning stands next to the buckets and spades with the packets of four nation paper flags for the sandcastles, the plastic boats with the sign on them, this is a toy and not to be used as a real boat or something of the like. (They still sell them) One of these cards was an old man sitting in a deck chair on a beach dressed in sandals, trousers rolled up to his knees, string/white cotton vest and a large handkerchief with knots tied in the corners to weight it down on his head to keep the sun off. Looking back on time now my Grandad Ernie Howells of Eubank Street for as long as I could remember had a shiny head, not a hair on it and my Nana used to do this for him, not for fun but out of need, to stop his head burning. Don’t get mixed up with his son my Uncle Ernie Howells from Wren Street, who also is short of a trip to the barbers, as being a waste of time, who is still around by the way. Roy.
LikeLike
My mother told me she would go over the transport bridge for days out to Seaton Carew possibly in the late 30″s to mid 40″s – do you have any pictures/accounts of the place then?
LikeLike
Seaton carew has changed beyond belief. I was brought up in seaton and went to Holy trinity school. Smiths butchers,lithgos fish and chips.nobles fun palace, I remember the amphibious boats, my cousin Brian popple helped run them and used to take me on them, got drenched many times. I loved going salmon fishing with Harry Brian off Seaton beach. His boat was a double ender called the Bronya Johns. I was often waiting outside Macs magic shop for it to open at 9am to spend my shilling pocket money and often talking to Paul Daniels who used to buy magic tricks there as a lad. My uncle Jack used to boil and sell crabs in the car park at south end, aunt Edith selling jugs of tea. It was packed with bus trippers in those days. There was an american radar tower next to her house at south end with huge generators. I used to beg chewing gum from the yanks. My family all were salt workers at Port Clarence and Haverton Hill. my dad worked at Dorman Long as a moulder. I loved meeting him as he came over the transporter bridge for the bus to Seaton.
LikeLike
I remember Seaton Carew because I was born there, my Father and Mother had a butchers shop on the Front. We sold pork baps and pastes and pies, also cakes all my Mother baked little help from me.Seaton Carew Holy Trinty School, I still remember all my friend I left behind and miss them all. One of my friend her father had the fish and chip shop. I worked for a while in the roller skating rink for, and skated there I was quite good.
LikeLike
I lived in Seaton Carew we bought our meat from Smiths I remember your parents but I was only a child I loved it so much there the skating rink was my very favourite place I often think about those days it was the happiest time of my life.
Please email Picture Stockton for my email so we can talk.
LikeLike
In the late 40″s early 50″s there was an ex – military DUKW (amphibious vehicle), painted bright red, which used to take trippers on a “voyage” round the bay. My aunt decided to take myself & my two cousins on it, against advice from my mother, as it was slightly rough. The “captain” was eating a sandwich & my Aunt Pat became the most amazing shade of green. Freeboard on the thing was only about a foot and you could dangle your hand in the sea, nithering even in summer.
LikeLike
I remember going to Seaton Crewe around 1970, on the special Sunday service bus from Hardwick. It was great place to go and have fun. I do remember the Joke Shop, the Roller-Skating Rink and the Fun Fair with the Infamous Madmouse Roller Coaster. Also I think there was a Paddling Pond. I did return last year on my bike and was surprised how much Seaton had changed. Still it is a nice place to pass thru on the bike and have a cup of tea and beefburger on the seafront with some wonderful views.
LikeLike
Seaton Carew – A magical name for kids in the late forties, I remember my mother who would have been 106 on July 28th if she were still here told me the story of the day when her mother Elizabeth Lakey, wife of Tom Fanny Lakey the Stockton Footballer, took six kids to Seaton on the train, and on the return journey waiting for the train which was late told the kids to jump on the next train, I am sick of waiting here it will be OK. That train took them all the way to Sunderland and they all finished up sleeping at Sunderland Police Station for the night and the Sunderland Police had to get the Stockton Police to go around to Fanny Lakey and tell him where his wife Kids, and kids friends where. A great adventure for six lucky kids. My mother Hilda Brown, went to live in an old peoples home in Billingham when she was about 88 years old and got in to a conversation with a blind lady who was a resident. They started to swap their respective histories and as soon as my mother mentioned the nams Lakey the blind women related the tale of the Seaton trip that ended in Sunderland to my mother and it turned out the lady was my mothers best friend as children. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction
LikeLike
Come on Bob, the walk from the station was certainly long, but to a kid definitely not exciting. But the beach, when we got there, unbeatable.
LikeLike
Seaton Carew – What always sticks in my memory was the long exciting walk from the railway station to the sea front and the first glipse of Tees-Bay. The miles of golden sand and if the tide was out the rock-pools. A wonderful view from The Headland, Old Hartlepool to Huntscliffe, Saltburn. The walk back was more tiring after a day of “splodging”, sand building and walk around the amusments. Seaton is still the same, turn right onto the front and the giftshop, fish-shop and rock seller is still there far left, but as you say all the amusment-park has gone and the hundreds of parked bicycles are no more. Seaton was a “mecca” for the sunday or holiday cyclist, more popular than Redcar, funny thing we never went left , after Station Road, it was always to the slip-way onto the beach or sea-front.
LikeLike
Remember Seaton well as a kid, went on a few trips courtesy of the Malleable works where my dad was a welder. Used to think the old wooden big dipper was awesome, it looked huge to us kids. When you think back in relation to today”s rides I guess it would be a little tame in comparision. Still brings back fond memories of a happy childhood though.
LikeLike
The first picture of the beach shows where the “fun fair” used to be, a real treat and where all our pocket money went on the rides and slot machines. The second picture shows the bus station where the old United or Stockton Corporation bus used to drop us “day trippers” off. I remember that on some occasions the weather was that bad we hardly left the arcades and slot machine “palaces”. The third photograph was our first sight of Seaton Carew as we arrived for our day trips, arm bands on with our names, buckets and spades. Sandwiches on the beach or if you were rich chips from the fish and chip shop. Then home again after our adventure by the sea.
LikeLike