A 'seacoaler' is a person who collects and sells coal washed up on the beaches from coal seams eroded by the sea, or from collieries along the coast. As a trade, seacoaling is believed to date back to the 7th century and has taken place on beaches in the North-East including this one near Lynemouth Colliery, where a community of seacoalers and their families lived in caravans at the 'Seacoal Camp' and sold the coal to households and industrial sites, including a power station for a local recycling plant. The coal mine, power station and 'Seacoal Camp' have now gone and the area has since been landscaped.
This is part of the Job: 93/01741 Sea Coalers on Black Beach, Lynemouth; within the Volume: BF091101 Lynemouth Colliery, Lynemouth, Northumberland; within the Series: RCH01/047 Coal Industry Project; within the Collection: RCH01 Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) Archive
© Crown Copyright. Historic England Archive
Curator: Jackson, Vanessa
Photographer: Davies, James O
Family Life
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