Sea Glass

Sea Glass is the name given to man made glass which has been discarded into the sea, then tumbled and shaped by the sea over many years before returning to the shore. 

Most of my sea glass comes from Seaham.

Sea Glass can be found on many beaches around the world, but the amount of glass and the different colours you can find at Seaham make it a ‘must-visit’ site for collectors.

Seaham and Sunderland had several bottle works and glass making factories during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. In Seaham was the largest glass bottle works in Britain – The Londonderry Bottle works, operating from the 1850s to 1921

The bottle works produced up to 20,000 hand-blown bottles every day, in different colours and designs including hand crafted bottles, perfume bottles and household glass, all of which were distributed across the globe.

The bottle works would dump large amounts of waste glass straight into the North Sea and that’s where Seaham’s sea glass story began! Each tide brought colour little gems along Seaham’s shore, which have been shaped and smoothed by the North Sea for over 100 years. 

No two sea glass pebbles are the same, in shape or colour. 

Many colours and types of glass can be found,  including codd marbles, which were used as a seal for fizzy drinks, safety glass which has wire reinforcement running through it, bottle necks and sea pottery!

The most common glass to find in Seaham is clear and green glass, as this was the most popular coloured glass produced by the bottle works. You’ll also find yellow, red, blue, aqua and even multi-coloured pebbles or milk glass which comes in pastel shades of blues, yellows and green.

The different shades of glass were determined by the chemicals used in making the glass, as well as the temperate of the melt and the length of time it was melted for.