the Seaham Seaglass story
Sea glass is the name given to man made glass which has been discarded into the sea, then tumbled and shaped by the ocean over several years before returning to the shore.
Sea glass can be found on most beaches around the world but the amount and the different colours you can find at Seaham make it unique.
Seaham was home to the largest bottle house and glassmaking factory in the Victorian and Edwardian eras - The Londonderry Bottle works which operated from the 1850's to 1921.
The bottle works produced up to 20,000 hand blown bottles every day in different colours and designs all of which were distributed across the globe.
The bottle works would dump large amounts of waste glass into the North Sea and that's where Seaham sea glass began.
That's why with each tide you can find little gems that have been shaped and smoothed by the North Sea for over 100 years
End of day Sea glass
At the end of each day the final large balls of glass became unusable so were thrown into the sea. This " End of Day" glass often contained different colours of glass as seen above
Stoppers & marbles
Glass stoppers were usually used on bottles that would be used over time such as perfume bottles.
Glass marbles can also be found and these originated from playing marbles or codd bottles
so many colours
There are so many beautiful colours of sea glass to be found. some more common than others.
Red and orange glass is rare and there are two reasons for that. The first is that fewer things were made from these colours. The second is the fiery hues once required a colourant that was derived from real gold making them more expensive.