UKH

For a family birthday my family are going to a Spa for the day in Seaham on Saturday, not my thing so I thought I walk some of the coast path in the rain and wind!
I don't know the area and lack of planning means I have not even got OS 308 yet, but how hard can it be following the coast south?!
Planning to start from Seaham and head south and see where I end up, Crimdon or further south, they can pick me up at the end of the day.
Just wondering if that's a good option, or would it be better to start a mile or two further north?

Any advice gratefully received
 

I last went north of seaham about 12 years ago.  2-3 miles north it was impassible due to deep erosion filled with water around an old concrete slipway.  Doubling back and going up and around, things only got grimmer as I got further north.

Walking south is easy enough - be sure to ignore the coast part and descend the steeply ramped slag heap to the beach of slag (“Blast Beech”) south of Nose’s point.  Continue to far south on the long beach of slag admiring the bright orange pools and the small erosion cliff of slag, and you miss the last path out but fear not - there is some of the most solid limestone in County Durham to scramble your way up and out at the end.  Descend east of the railway line to the next beach at the end of Hawthorn dene - this one wasn’t used as a slag heap but is covered in slag transported by the waves.

From there on climb out and stick to the coast path, often a hundred yards inland.

Rather than Crimdon - you’ll probably have exhausted the variety of the Durham coast before then - consider turning inland at Peterlee and going up Castle Eden Dene.  Amazing place - big limestone gorge.  Keep north of the stream in it.  Google “Gunner’s Pool Bridge”.

Actually if the weather is shite and you aren’t a Biologist studying life that doesn’t die in toxic slag, you might consider getting dropped off at the A181/A19 junction and travelling down Castle Eden Dene from the west to the coast.

If you do carry on south of Peterlee be aware that a lot of beach access points down the cliffs were lost in storms a few years ago and that the caves east of Blackhall Rocks can only be passed at low tide.  The double decker cave is cool.  Nearby you can still find concrete anchors from the arial hall line that used to dump slag in the sea and on the beaches.

I had a great time walking the County Durham coast, it’s nicer than it sounds!  Also each year more of the slag is carried away by the sea.

Sounds like Wintertree's experience may be a bit out of date. I spent much of this year working in Seaham, and did a fair bit of running along the coast path in both directions (so have covered the entire stretch from Hartlepool to Sunderland on more than one occasion). There is a path the whole way, and a lot of it around Easington and Crimdon is tarmacked.

On the one hand I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of the coastline (based on pretty low expectations), but on the other, I eventually got bored of the amount of old mattresses, burnt out stuff and dogshit that I had to trip over to get to it!

Going north of seaham it’s 12 years out of date!  I’ve been to most bits south of there in the last few years.

I also could have been much clearer in my last post - the problem I had with the old slipway is only if you go far north by beach - the cliff top path (the coastal path) is unaffected.  It turns out it’s actually a drain near Ryehope, not a slipway, from looking at aerial photos.

Likewise, the OP can stick to the coastal path rather than descending down to Blast Baech, but it’s an experience not to be missed!

There used to be a rusty ladder chassis from a van standing vertically on the beach.  Has it fallen over yet?

Blast beach is where they filmed parts of Alien 3

I'm from Seaham and although I don't live there now I'm back once a month to visit family. The Durham Coast is now a National Nature Reserve following a big HLF grant back in the mid to late 90's and in early summer the restored wild flower meadows are lovely.

I run along the coast every time I'm back and I have to say I don't recognise the ramped slag heap that Wintertree describes. Starting at Noses Point (big car park) it is 13 miles to Crimdon (I did the National Trust organised half marathon back in 2014 and it goes up and down the various steep wooded denes along the coast. Hawthorn Dene is good but you don't see much of it and I agree with Wintertree about Castle Eden Dene - turning inland and walking through to either Peterlee or Castleden itself would be more rewarding than more of the same down to Crimdon.

I was working in the business park right over the road from the Blast Beach and don't remember spotting that, so it must've gone. Much as I've moaned about dogshit etc, I haven't worked in many places with a more spectacular lunchtime wandering spot!

I definitely undersold the cliff top side of the experience.  The butterfly season is amazing.

It’s the descent to the beach south of Nose’s Point.

It must be 40 meters high and 25 meters wide.  It’s grassed over a lot but the slag composition is visible in erosion gullies and the exposed Easten cliff - the big featureless grey wall in this photo - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/images/blast-beach-wayne-appleton--re-size...

It’s slumping down and exposing the limestone cliffs.  Clearly the grey slag isn’t as stout as the red slag comprising the main beach.

Cheers for that. I'll need to look more closely next time!

Thanks for the advice all, especially @wintertree. My experience went as follows: 

Started off from a car park opposite Seaham Hall and headed south on the beach towards Seaham in the driving rain. This bit was nice enough but I wish I'd started from Nose's Point because the walk "through" Seaham was pretty bad, and I don't mean the weather - trudging along the A812 passing the Argos, Asda and anonymous warehouses for best part of a mile topped off by some boxes that turned out to be council buildings. Headed down the slag slope to Blast Beach which was great and the rain had stopped (for good) by now - despite weather forecast of 100% certainty of rain most of the day.

Explored the arches to the left before walking to the end of the beach, eschewing the steps 2/3 the way along and scrambling up the grassy slope to the footpath, made the mistake of looking back and seeing the council buildings scarring the landscape again!

There was nice little wooded section, on what seemed to be a mostly barren coastline, by the train line and some good steps down to the beach and that was virtually my last experience of the coast path as such, since I stuck to the shore from now on since luckily the tide was out all day. Mixture of pebbly/rocky beaches and just rocky sections, one of which may only have been passable an hour or so either way of low tide. Enjoyable although the almost permanent presences of slag shelves at the back of most beaches was mildly depressing.

I had left my water in the car and didn't realise at the time that Seaham Asda was my last chance to buy some, so had my fill from the brook * at Fox Hole Dene.  Plenty of oystercatchers, some other shorebirds and a couple of cormorants, but virtually no humans spotted after Blast Beach. From guesswork, I don't think the actual coast path was particularly splendid, better on the beaches.

That said, even in the sunshine, I did become aware of how tedious it suddenly seemed, no more birds, a huge slag shelf running along an unvarying dirty coloured beach .... just as wintertree had suggested, and luckily I found my self at Castle Eden, so following his sage advice headed inland under the impressive viaduct, through the dark, long culvert and enjoyed a lovely autumn woodland walk. I missed Gunner's Pool Bridge though and emerged at St James Church.

* 36 hours later some serious chunder action started, very foolish.

Thanks for the trip report!  Good work on sticking to the beaches for much of it.  A real isolated feel down there with the stark colours and lack of people.

I’m feeling all nostalgic for a visit to the coast now.