North Seaton Hall stood in the hamlet of the same name, just inland from Newbiggin by the Sea on the Northumberland coast. The house and ancillary buildings were demolished in the 1960s, and the land developed for housing: only the road called ‘Summerhouse Lane’ gives a clue to a fascinating feature which once ornamented the grounds.

The hall, seat of the Watson family, was described as newly built in 1730. It is shown on Armstrong’s 1769 map of Northumberland, and alongside it stands what looks like a substantial tower or summerhouse. At that date the hall was home to Stephen and Dorothy Watson and their family. Little is known of the Summerhouse’s early history,  but it was probably used as a banqueting house and belvedere to take advantage of the views to the coast.

The Summerhouse may have had a less frivolous purpose at a time when Britain feared invasion by the French. Stephen and Dorothy’s son, William Watson (1751-1830), supervised the ‘Beacon man’ at Newbiggin. His role was to keep a lookout and be ready to light a warning beacon should the French fleet be spotted. In November 1796, with invasion thought imminent, Watson charged him to be ‘more than usually attentive and give immediate notice if anything extraordinary appears at Sea’. Watson’s summerhouse would probably have been equipped with a telescope so that he too could survey the North Sea: the building was known locally as ‘the Lookout’.

It is not known who designed the mansion or the quirky Summerhouse with its pretty gothic glazing in the windows (varying on each storey), pierced battlements and curved roof giving just a nod to chinoiserie. Local architect John Dobson has been suggested, and his daughter Mary wrote a memoir of her father in which she states that the first house he designed was at ‘North Seaton’ for J. Nicholson Esq. in 1813. Many texts repeat this attribution, but in 1813 North Seaton Hall was the established seat of the Watsons, so it would seem that Nicholson’s new house was elsewhere. Dobson may however have worked at North Seaton at a later date: the drawing featured here was part of a collection that included many of Dobson’s houses in Northumberland, and so it may record recent remodelling of the house and/or summerhouse. Sadly few records from Dobson’s practice survive to provide answers.

By the middle of the 19th century the house was described as an ‘elegant mansion […] surrounded by pleasing scenery’. The 25″ Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1896, shows the tower with its curious, charming, meandering external staircase, as also seen in old photographs. Although sometimes described as a ‘lodge’, this map makes it clear that it was a garden feature and did not, at that date, sit on the drive.

The Watsons left the estate in the middle of the 19th century, and there were then a number of owners and tenants. In 1930 the hall was converted into a Migration Training Hostel where young men were given tuition for work they might do overseas. Almost immediately the demand for emigrants dried up, so the hall was then used as a holiday centre before the contents were sold in 1933. Local newspaper Blyth News was saddened at this ‘chequered history’ and was at a loss to know ‘what will transpire next’.

The hall was converted into council apartments after the Second World War, but in 1953 the families were rehoused as the house was badly infested with woodworm. In that same year the decision was taken to demolish the grade II listed hall, although no immediate action was taken. At that date it was thought that the summerhouse  ‘could be retained as a historic building’, but with the house empty the thieves and vandals arrived. In 1954 the County Surveyor reported that the summerhouse was in a poor condition, and that the police were seeking the thieves who had stripped the roof of its lead. Despite it being a scheduled monument (grade II), it was decided that the summerhouse ‘should be demolished in the interests of health and safety’, and the stone retained for use ‘elsewhere’.

Nikolaus Pevsner visited around this date when researching for his Buildings of England volume on Northumberland, which would be published in 1957. His depressing summary was that the hall was ‘very neglected’ but he did note the summerhouse which described as ‘solid early 19C Gothic Revival’. In May 1961 the inevitable (for that period) demolition work began. It was thought too dangerous for the rotted interiors to be dismantled, so the structure was deliberately set on fire, with the local fire brigade tackling the blaze as a training exercise. The remains of the mansion were then pulled down, along with the Summerhouse, and the grounds developed for housing.

Today, the Summerhouse is remembered only in a street name.

Thanks to the team at Northumberland Archives for their help with this story.

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Alexander Davison (1750-1829) of Swarland Park, near Felton in Northumberland, erected this obelisk to Nelson in 1807. A closer look at the inscription reveals that he was not only celebrating the admiral’s victory at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, but more particularly their personal friendship. Davison had made a fortune supplying the government during the wars with America and France, but he was later charged with ‘public peculation’ – in other words the court believed he had his hand in the till.

Davison had travelled to Quebec as a young man and grew rich in the shipping trade and as a merchant during the American War of Independence. It was in Canada in 1782 that he first met Horatio Nelson. Davison further increased his wealth during the war with the French via lucrative government contracts to supply goods to the British Navy. After the Battle of the Nile in August 1798 he became Nelson’s agent, negotiating the best prices for the enemy ships captured as prizes. For this he was paid a commission, some of which he spent on producing medals for all the sailors who took part in the action.

A few years earlier he had bought the Swarland estate, between Morpeth and Alnwick in Northumberland. A new Palladian hall had been built only 30 years earlier, attributed to John Carr of York. Here, as the county historian Mackenzie wrote in 1825, Davison ‘greatly added to the appearance of the house and grounds by planting and other improvements which have rendered it one of the most handsome and commodious seats in the county.’

Things began to go wrong from around 1802 when Davison tried to bribe voters at an election, and was later imprisoned. There were also whispers that he was corrupt and embezzling funds, and in 1808 he was convicted and again sent to jail, leading to social and financial ruin.

In 1806 he had been asked to account for the whereabouts of missing subscriptions collected to erect a column in memory of Lord Nelson, but he denied all knowledge of the funds. It may have been in reaction to this that he commissioned this monument on his Northumberland estate, which was completed by the mason Thomas Robson in the spring of 1807.

The plaque on the needle of the obelisk is engraved with Nelson’s famous words ‘England expects every man to do his duty’, and below on the plinth is the simple wording ‘Victory 21 October 1805’.

But the wording on the pedestal makes clear that this is Davison’s personal tribute:

‘Not to commemorate the public virtues and heroic achievements of Nelson which is the duty of England, but to the memory of private friendship this erection is dedicated by Alexander Davison, Swarland Hall’.

In his inscription Davison was criticising the tardiness of the nation in building a national monument to Nelson. Although there had been appeals immediately after Nelson had lost his life at the Battle of Trafalgar, and individuals had commissioned their own tributes across the country, London would not have the column in Trafalgar Square until the early 1840s. Davison chose to build his obelisk in the most visible position on his estate – close by the Great North Road on the principal route between London and Edinburgh, where it was noted by travellers passing by.

Locally, the obelisk was seen by some as Davison’s attempt to detract attention from his crimes by trading on his friendship with the national hero. Local histories record these lines, said to have been penned at the Northumberland Arms in nearby Felton around the time the obelisk was built:

Can honour grace a mean and sordid mind,
Though slightly veiled in courtly ostentation,
Can patriot worth a kindred spirit find,
In the vile swindler of a freeborn nation.

Shall Nelson’s name thy character defend,
Thou public base calumniator,
The libel’s gross to call the Hero friend,
By the convicted public peculator.

The mansion at Swarland was demolished in the first half of the 20th century, after the estate had been dispersed. By the late 1990s, the owners of the land on which the obelisk stands had agreed to transfer it to Felton Parish Council. Working with the neighbouring Newton-on-the-Moor and Swarland Parish Councils, a successful bid was made for Heritage Lottery funding, and the Grade II listed obelisk was restored. It is easily accessible (subject to ongoing improvement works to the A1) on a short stretch of the old A1 east of Swarland.

With apologies for the shadows on the obelisk. The Folly Flâneuse has returned to this site in all seasons, and at all times of day, without every finding the perfect moment for a photograph.

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In Sharp’s day the picturesque little landscape garden below the tower had a pavilion shaded by 4 fir trees, where he liked to drink tea, and a small stone bastion to view the scene. Close to the water’s edge was a grotto which seemed ‘mostly the work of nature, but assisted by art.’

Sharp (1723-1792) built out from a natural cave, using stone which appears to have been quarried nearby, creating a two-roomed shelter. There is a fireplace in what was presumably a dressing room and as a further courtesy a small tunnel led from the cave to the water, allowing those who chose to bathe to slip into the water unseen.

Although a swim was not an appealing option when The Folly Flâneuse visited in January…

The two niches above the door once housed statues. An 1828 gazetteer describes the statues as two male figures, but identifies only one as ‘Jupiter hurling his thunderbolt’. As Jupiter was the Roman god of thunder and the sky, a likely companion would be one of his mythical brothers: Neptune god of the waters or Pluto, god of the underworld. Both would seem appropriate to the site.

Around the same date, Thomas Sopwith a Newcastle-born surveyor, mining engineer and local historian, sketched the grotto. He described the statues as representing ‘persons in the act of throwing stones’, and noted that they had been brought from St Stephen’s Chapel in London by Sir Walter Calverley Blackett. Sir Walter (1707-1777) had embellished the sham Rothley Castle on his nearby Wallington estate with architectural salvage in the 1760s, so this seems perfectly feasible, but this seems the only account to mention the origin of the statues.

Long since disappeared, the figures were a target for vandals as far back as 1864 when ‘some evil and maliciously disposed person or persons, did […] remove a figure from the Grotto in Hartburn Wood and threw it in the river.’ A £5 reward was offered to anyone who could discover the offender. It seems unlikely it was recovered as in 1920 only one statue remained, but it too had met an undignified end and lay ‘prostrate in the grotto’. By this date the statues were said to be of Adam and Eve. Whoever they were, the deep pool by the grotto is probably their home today.

Tower (grade II*) and grotto (grade II) survive, as does a very pretty bridge with a tall lancet arch.

The Tower is now a private home but can be seen from the road. A nearby footpath leads down through Hartburn Glebe to the grotto. Sharp’s pleasure ground is now in the care of The Woodland Trust which is reopening footpaths and vistas and protecting the built structures. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/4146/hartburn-glebe/

UPDATE: the sketch and description by Sopwith were added to the original post in March 2026. Many thanks to Richard Cansdale, the Woodland Trust’s volunteer warden at Hartburn, for sharing this information, which was given to his family by Sopwith’s descendant.

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