The East Coast: South Shields to Seaburn

[nigheandonn]

It was really a friend's birthday party which took me south, but since that was only in the evening it was a shame to waste the day - I'd had a walk north from the other side of the Shields ferry by then, and I'd walked the Northumberland Coast Path simply because it was Northumberland, but I don't think I had any conscious plan of setting out to walk any large part of the coast.

I'd looked over several times from Tynemouth and been enticed by the even longer pier on the other side of the river, but this was the first time I'd actually set out to walk to the end - it's more or less a mile from where the pier leaves the road to the lighthouse at its tip, so a not insubstantial walk in its own right.

South Pier

The way back gave a good view over to the smaller groyne, and the leading lights at North Shields.

North and South Shields

The great stretch of sandy beach ends at Trow Point with its odd gun emplacement - apparently it's called a disappearing gun, although I'm not very sure what disappears.

Trow Point

Beyond the point paths have been made through an old quarry - interesting shapes with the rock walls standing up on either side.

Trow Quarry

The next gap in the cliffs is called Frenchman's Bay, apparently after a ship which ran aground here, and is interesting for the exposed geology - limestone above a layer of yellow sandstone at the base of the cliffs.

Frenchman's Bay

Beyond the next headland the geology gets even more exciting - all kinds of stacks in Marsden Bay. I don't know that I'd never seen a seastack, but I'd definitely never been somewhere where they were just lying around like this before.

Marsden Bay sea stacks

The furthest stack, standing well away from the cliff, is called Pompey's Pillar, and like the rest of the stacks is used by seabirds.

Pompey's Pillar

A view back up from the south end of the bay shows the Pillar with the larger Marsden Rock behind, and the headland at North Shields behind them again.

Marsden Bay

The layers of rock are even clearer in the next headland, a narrow band of grey above the yellow.

Layers of geology

Just before the next point is an enormous row of limekilns, once belonging to the nearby quarry.

Limekilns

On the point itself is Souter lighthouse, nicely painted in stripes, and the first lighthouse specifically built to run on electric light.

Souter lighthouse

A bigger rock here was doing even better for birds - kittiwakes are the local stars, but also cormorants (or their cousins) and other gulls.

Seabirds

Looking back from beyond the headland - through some unexpected rain - showed quite a dramatic arch.

Caves and arches

From here on, however, the landscape got gentler, with the path winding along the edge of a kind of park as it came back towards houses again.

Whitburn

There's a fair sized town inland here, although the coast itself stays quite lonely, and the landmark of the Whitburn windmill was in sight - this dates back to the 18th century, but had been fairly recently renovated.

Whitburn windmill

Having come round the curve of the headland north of Whitburn I now had a view down towards Sunderland, which had been hidden before, although I wasn't going to reach it until the next time.

Sunderland

I was now back on sandy beach heading down towards Seaburn, with patches of open space inland again, although I was so close to the edge of Sunderland.

A little burn was doing quickly and on a small scale what the sea had obviously been doing to the rocks along this stretch of coast, with little sections collapsing into the water - a nice demonstration.

Small sandy geology

From the little lighthouse at Parson's Rocks I finally turned inland, up a long road to Seaburn metro and the Fulwell windmill standing beyond it, slightly newer than its twin up the coast.

Seaburn windmill

From there it was only the slow ride back into Newcastle - a very different route, because the metro keeps well inland, even avoiding the Tyne until it crosses it.