In fine weather the crowds which pass and repass along the top of the bold cliffs which overlook the fine stretch of sands between Cullercoats and Monkseaton show how many hundreds of Northumbria’s busy workers enjoy the fresh breezes from the sea on this pleasant and bracing coast.  Out at sea, opposite the Parade, vessels built in the busy shipyards on the Tyne may be seen doing their speed trials over the measured mile.  The Peace of St. Oswyn may, in fact, be said to brood over Tynemouth, even in these days, for it is an increasing custom for those who can do so to remain in Newcastle and other busy centres of toil only during business hours, and to leave workshop and office every evening for their home by the sea:  while the tide of noisy, happy, boisterous excursionists has rolled on to Whitley Bay, leaving Tynemouth to its old-time sleepy content.  Northward to Hartley and Seaton Sluice the cliffs are very fine.  Hartley, with its bright-looking red-tiled houses, once belonged to Adam of Gesemuth (Jesmond) who lived in the reign of King John.  Coming down to modern times, about thirty years ago a gallant Hartley man, Thomas Langley, rescued two successive shipwrecked crews on the same day, in one case allowing himself to be lowered over the cliffs at a terrible risk in the furious storm.

Seaton Sluice belongs to the ancient family of the Delavals, whose house, Delaval Hall, may be seen not far away, peeping from amongst the trees which surround it.  Seaton Sluice owes its name to the Delaval who placed the large sluice gates upon the burn, in order to have a strong current which, in rushing down to the sea, would be able to wash the mouth of the stream clear from the silt and mud brought in by the incoming tide.  A later baronet, Sir John Hussey Delaval, made the cutting through the solid rock which is so striking a feature of the harbour.  It was ready for the entrance of vessels in March, 1763.

Delaval Hall is now owned by Lord Hastings, the present representative of the Delavals, which family became extinct in the male line early in the nineteenth century.  The last Delaval, a very learned man, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1814.  The Hall was built for Admiral Delaval in 1707 to the design of Sir J. Vanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim Palace, given by the nation to the great Duke of Marlborough about the same time.

Hartley Colliery, about half a mile away, has a sad interest as being the scene of the terrible accident in 1862, when a number of men and boys were imprisoned in the workings owing to the blocking up of the only shaft by a mass of debris, caused by the fall of an iron beam belonging to the pumping engine at the pit-head.  Before the shaft could be cleared and a way opened to the workings, all the poor fellows had died, overcome by the deadly “choke-damp.”  Joseph Skipsey, the pitman poet, in a simple ballad, tells the pathetic story.

  “Oh, father! till the shaft is rid,
  Close, close beside me keep;
  My eyelids are together glued,
  And I,—­and I,—­must sleep.”