Emma Mitchell

Author, designer-maker, naturalist, illustrator, mum

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Seaham seaglass

Candlish Bottleworks and glass foundry was built on the cliffs at Seaham, County Durham, and began producing glass in 1853. It made almost every colour imaginable for medicine and poison bottles, vases and homewares and everyday drinks bottles. Reds, blues, yellows and even opaque glass were made in its furnaces.

Candlish bottleworks, Seaham

At the end of each day the excess molten glass and any broken pieces were thrown over the cliffs into the sea. The beach below has one of the highest percentages of seaglass of any beach in the world. This information alone is enough cause paroxysms of excitement and pilgrimages to Co. Durham for most crafters but add the fact that the factory closed in 1921 and therefore the majority of the seaglass pebbles are at least 90 years old and there is danger of overload. This glass is precious stuff, yet you can simply drive to Seaham and pick it up.

Last summer I made a pilgrimage from Nana’s house in N Yorkshire. The siren call of the treasure was just too strong to resist. Heavens to Betsy – such treasure. Here’s just a little of what I found:
Swoon. See that blue piece near the top right? It has stripes. It’s called ‘end of day’ glass, formed when different colours of glass were used to make different products during a single day, then the accumulated stripey glass was chucked into the sea.

I go into a slightly meditative state when I’m beachcombing. I can forget everything and just focus on the search for treasure. Those two hours or so spent on Seaham beach were good.

Using this seaglass to make jewellery is thrilling. I love the thought of the ninety or more years the glass has been in the sea, the thousands of times it has tumbled over pebbles and been washed against the beach. I like to think of the poison bottle or vase that batch of glass may have been used to make and the year in which is may have been made. The colours are wonderful and I especially love the subtle aqua shades and vivid blues. Combining the smooth glass pebbles with shells, mother of pearl buttons from the 1930s and facetted fluorite makes little collections of tiny treasures similar to the ones the girls and I collect on Southwold beach.

I made a necklace using Seaham seaglass for Lucy of Attic24 in our seaside-themed swap last year. The arrival of the wonderful warm Spring sunshine and a request for two seaside-themed commssions made me dig out my the rest of my drilled stash and *ahem* order a little more from Paula who collects and drills her Seaham beach finds.
     

A small collection of necklaces that I have made using this wonderful antique glass is in my Etsy shop.

Note: there are still spaces available on my Beginner’s silver clay workshop on Saturday 22nd June.

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Comments

  3. Those are beautiful. I've heard the story of that glass when I did some buying of drilled sea glass to make some jewelry for myself to wear for my weeks spent by the sea in Oregon. You made some beautiful necklaces with it. I'm at the coast for my birthday this week and we found 5 pieces of sea glass, you can see some in the photos on my blog. ((hugs)), Teresa 🙂

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  4. i live half an hour from Seaham ^ never knew that! I do know that just a bit further down the coast is a fab fossil finding beach tho-One of my fav ways to easily lose myself for a day!
    I was hoping your workshop was local but its not 🙁

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  5. Hello 🙂 I've been thinking about sea glass for the last three days after coming across some beautiful jewellery on etsy and wondering how to get hold of some to incorporate into a piece (or even pieces) I'll be making at a couple of silver jewellery workshops I'm attending in the summer… And google tells me Seaham is less than 2 hours away for me, so this is a very serendipitous post! Thank you 🙂

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  7. What wonderful finds, how interesting to know about the beach there and the glass works.

    Maybe one day when I get over to visit my sister who cannot live too far from you; we can visit that beach.

    Christy
    Lil Bit Brit

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  10. We go to Seaham beach quite often and we have bucket loads of Seaglass dotted and stored all around the house. We never come back from a walk without a good handful xx

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  13. how beautiful and how very suitable for your lovely work. My mother and I spent ages on beaches searching for pieces of old, worn, seawashed glass similar in colours to these pieces – they were a rare find and the triumphant moment when I was lucky and found bits of this treasure are happy childhood memories.Betty

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  14. I have three little glass bottles on my kitchen windowsill – one filled with teeny gumnuts, another with little shells and the third with pieces of seaglass.

    What a wonderful idea to make jewellery from it.

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  16. Gosh Emma – that is so beautiful and the history behind it all. I've found the odd piece of blue down here, but it's the light kind of blue and a fair bit of green (probably beer bottles!) I'm always so fascinated about each piece though.

    Nina x

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  17. how I love seaglass too!

    I spent my honeymoon on the island of Langkawi and 'our' beach there was full of tiny pieces of seaglass… I came home with a box full.

    Can't beat a good beach combing session.

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  23. I really love seaglass – especially the pieces in the necklace you made for my 40th 2 years ago! I'm looking forward to warmer, scarf-free days when I can start wearing it again. Lucy xx

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  30. You make such beautiful jewellery, those pieces of sea glass are just beautiful. I love beachcombing for sea glass and other treasures – I never find any nearly as pretty as those though! x

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  31. omg !!! they are so so so beautiful jewellery Emma….

    seaglass is one of my fav…. and this is just awesome….

    i just freaking loved it…..

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  33. Your Sea glass jewelery is very lovely and I really enjoyed reading about the history of Candlish Botteworks. I look forward to reading more of your postings. I am your newest follower.. Hugs Judy

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  34. Thanks so much for sharing your Seaham treasures. I've been working on multimedia in my jewellery class lately and this was really inspiring. The weekend after you posted it I was off to the coast to look for treasures of my own. Unfortunately Seaham was too far, so Frinton on Sea had to suffice. Hope that you have a great weekend 🙂 SSx

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  35. Thanks Emma, i only just got round to leaving a comment, i really appreciate the link to my Etsy store and i just wanted to addmy own blog address for the festival we held last weekend, peblsfloat.blogspot.com which, despite the biblical rainstorm, was a fun event with lots of new friends found, and some awesome seaglass brought in by the public on Sunday.
    Your work is brilliant, keep it up.

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  37. What a fascinating blog. Our industrial history is so important and for it to yield such beautiful artefacts which lovely creative people like Emma can honour with their creations is even better 🙂

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  38. You really found treasures. These sea glasses are really beautiful. And they are really perfect for making adorable jewelries. Oh! This made me wish I live somewhere near the Candlish Bottleworks factory.

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