Seaham

Seaham is a small town in County Durham that grew up around a harbour on the North Sea coast of north-east England. Until the early years of the 19th century it was a small farming community whose only claim to fame was that the local landowner's daughter, Anne Isabella Milbanke, got married at Seaham Hall to Lord Byron on 2 January 1815.

However, the area's fortunes changed when the Milbankes sold their estates to the third Marquess of Londonderry, who built a harbour in 1828 to facilitate transport of goods from the industries they encouraged on their land. However, this harbour later proved inadequate to deal with the millions of tonnes of coal being mined from their nearby mines, and the sixth Marquess commissioned engineers Patrick Meik and Charles Meik to reclaim land and extend and deepen the dock. This was officially opened in 1905.

Today, the town has a population of around 22,000.