New Seaham

OS map extract showing New Seaham and Seaham Colliery - Durham XXI.3 Revised: 1895, Published: 1897, CC-BY (NLS)

New Seaham was a planned colliery village, built by the Londonderry family from the 1840s to serve Seaham Colliery and the booming coal port of Seaham Harbour.

The new community was within the Parish of St. Mary, (Old) Seaham, until the building of Christ Church in New Seaham in 1857 and the creation of New Seaham as a separate parish (constituted 1861). The terrace houses built in New Seaham typically had one room downstairs and one upstairs. The downstairs room served for cooking, bathing, meals, general living and as sleeping space for parents, with children sleeping upstairs. The back yard had a dry closet privy ("netty") and a coal shed. There were 14 streets (rows) recorded in New Seaham at the time of the 1861 Census; growing to 20 streets by the time of the 1891 Census. By the 1930s much of the housing was earmarked for demolition under the Slum Clearance Act, replaced by the Parkside estate to which most of the inhabitants transferred en-masse there in 1939/1940.^[1] Westlea and Eastlea council estates were later built on and around the site of the old village. 

Initially a separate village, New Seaham gradually evolved into part of the growing town of Seaham. Following changes to local government in 1937, New Seaham, Dawdon, and Seaham Harbour were effectively consolidated into Seaham Urban District. The Urban District itself was replaced in 1974 by Easington District, formed from the merger of Seaham Urban District with most of the Easington Rural District. This was abolished in 2009, becoming part of the new Durham County Council unitary authority. 

Extract from: Kelly's Directory of Durham (1890):

New Seaham is a colliery village in the township of Seaham, with a station on the Seaham and Sunderland railway: it was formed as a district chapelry out of Seaham, July 26, 1861, and declared a vicarage December 11, 1866. Christ Church, with residence for the clergyman, was built by the late Marchioness of Londonderry: the church consists of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch and a belfry containing 2 bells: the south aisle was added in 1862, at a cost of nearly £1,000: there are 500 sittings.....The living is a vicarage, endowed from the income of the parish of Seaham, gross yearly value £550, with residence, in the gift of the Marquess of Londonderry K.G., P.C. and held since 1857 by the Rev. William Armstrong Scott M.A. of Trinity College. Dublin, hon. canon of Durham and surrogate. Attached to the church are two Sunday schools, with lending libraries; and there is a church mission room, seating 250 persons, used also for meetings of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society: there are also two reading rooms for the use of the colliers. The population in 1881 was 2,851.

Londonderry School, for 135 infants; average attendance, 100.

Seaham Colliery, the property of the Marquess of Londonderry, is situated in this part of the township of Seaham; it is one of the deepest pits in the coalfield, being 290 fathoms deep, with two shafts, and affords support to 5,230 persons. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels in the village.

Londonderry Schools (mixed & infants), for 350 boys, 258 girls & 300 infants; average attendance, 260 boys, 230 girls & 220 infants.