The Rise and Fall of Cullercoats as a Coal Exporting Port in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

Although the coal industry in the Northeast of England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been the subject of extensive study by historians over many years, most research has focussed mainly on larger centres of the coal trade such as Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland. Less well known is the significant contribution to coal exports made by some of the smaller communities and harbours along the Northumberland and Durham coasts. During the latter years of the seventeenth and early years of the eighteenth century the small coastal village of Cullercoats, just North of Tynemouth, became a significant coal and salt exporting port following the development of a colliery at nearby Whitley. Customs records of Cullercoats coal exports were included, as a Lesser Creek, in the Exchequer Port Books of Newcastle upon Tyne. Two Newcastle Exchequer Port Books containing complete records of Cullercoats coastal exports for 1702–1703 and overseas exports for 1698–1699 have survived, these include the names of the people and ships involved and provide a fascinating insight into the impact of the coal trade upon a small coastal port and it's local community. Although its coal trade was relatively short lived, Cullercoats continued to thrive as a flourishing fishing port and during the nineteenth, twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries as a popular holiday resort frequented by many well-known and successful artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]