The bridge at Seaton Sluice, Northumberland, UK

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Here we can see the glorious wind swept beaches of Seaton Sluice, a village in Northumberland which lies on the coast at the mouth of the Seaton Burn, midway between Whitley Bay and Blyth. It has a population of about 3,000 people today.
Salt was produced at Seaton Sluice from at least 1236. Then it belonged to Tynemouth Priory. In 1100 the land became the property of the Hubert de Laval, nephew by marriage to William the Conqueror. The de Lavals (or Delavals) gave their name to the place they lived : Seaton Delaval, the name 'Seaton' being derived from Old English meaning a settlement (ton) by the sea.
A harbour was created in the Middle Ages for the export of salt and later coal. However the harbour was prone to silting, which limited access by ships. This problem was tackled by Sir Ralph Delaval (1622--1691), who had a pier constructed, and sluice gates that trapped the seawater at each high tide. At low tide the gates were opened, flushing the sand out of the harbour. Henceforth the village became known as Seaton Sluice.
The harbour remained like this until the 1760s, when Sir John Humphry Delaval had a new entrance made for the harbour by blasting a channel through solid rock, providing what was known as 'The Cut', 16m deep, 9m wide and 250m long. The new channel was opened in 1763 and, as a result, the land between the old harbour entrance and the new channel became an island, known as 'Rocky Island'. The new channel could be sealed off at both ends to allow loading to continue no matter what the state of the tide. On the other side of the old channel, opposite Rocky Island, was a ballast hill known as Sandy Island, built up from the ballast of ships entering the harbour. The ballast hill can still be seen.
In 1777, 177 ships sailed out of the harbour carrying 48,000 tonnes of coal. The coal was brought to the harbour from nearby collieries via wagonways, with coal wagons being drawn by horses. Salt continued to be exported from Seaton Sluice until 1798, when a salt tax put an end to the trade.
Even with the harbour improvements made by the Delaval family, the harbour was still limited in the size of ships that it could handle. Meanwhile, competing ports such as Blyth, to the north, and the Tyne to the south spent money improving the dock facilities. The new Northumberland Dock on the Tyne was completed in 1857. Seaton Sluice found it difficult to compete with these larger facilities.
A further blow to the coal trade from Seaton Sluice was the Hartley pit disaster that occurred at the village of New Hartley, about 3.2km west of Seaton Sluice. The Hester Pit was the main source of local coal. However, in 1862 there was a disaster when the beam of the pumping engine broke and fell down the only mineshaft, blocking it and trapping the miners underground. In all, 204 miners perished, in some cases several from the same family. The disaster led to the working practice in future mines, that there should always be two shafts. The loss of production from the Hester pit spelt the end of the coal trade from Seaton Sluice, and it became a quiet backwater.
An attempt in the early part of the 20th century to develop the village as a tourist resort failed as a railway line, intended to lead north up the coast from Whitley Bay, was partly constructed but then abandoned as the first world war intervened. The remains of railway bridges and embankments can still be seen.