History

This is a brief summary of the major events and timelines.

For much of the summary in this paper I am indebted to Ted Gosling’s book “The Book of Seaton – Celebrating a Seaside Town”, the 1875 edition of Pulman’s “Book of the Axe” and the 7th edition of “A Guide to Seaton and District” by E. J. Burham (circa 1930).

AD 0 - AD 1000

Mention was made of Axmouth being used as a major port by the Phoenicians. It is also believed that Vespasian’s second legion landed at Axmouth on its way to Exeter and there are links from Seaton and Axmouth to the Fosse Way. Pulman says that in Roman times it was the only port of consequence between the Exe and Portsmouth.

There are major Roman ruins at Honeyditches and others are believed to exist at Barnard’s Hill and Couchill in Seaton. Only Honeyditches has been subjected to major survey and excavation. A Roman bath house with a hypercaust was discovered. A large number of tesserae, which made up a mosaic floor to a large room near the bath house, are lodged with the Royal Albert Museum in Exeter along with other finds from the site. Some finds can be found in Seaton Museum. The site at Honeyditches is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The Romans knew the harbour at Axmouth as Uxelis and to them it was a key commercial and strategic port, linking up with the Fosse Way.

AD 1000 - 1700

Seaton was granted its first charter in 1005 (although it was at that time known as Aut Fleote) when it passed into the hands of a theign – Eadsig and on his death passing to the Priory of Horton in Dorset. Seaton and Axmouth are named in the Domesday Book of 1086 which mentions that Seaton includes eleven salt works. The name of the town was changed from Fleote to Seaton in 1126 when ownership of the manor passed to the Priory of Sherborne.

Salt working and fishing in Beer and Seaton is mentioned in papal texts of 1146.

According to Dr. Oliver’s “Monasteries”, Axmouth was the first parish in Devon where cider was made. As early as 1286 it was the ordinary drink of the labourers of the manor.

In 1347 Seaton provided two ships with twenty five men for the navy of Edward III in his expedition against Calais.

In the 14th century a major landslide blocked the estuary – which had been up to a mile wide - and this led to the build up of the gravel which subsequently blocked the channel. In 1450 Bishop Lacey granted 40 days’ indulgence to true penitents who contributed towards the repair of Seaton haven. Henry VIII gave the manors of Seaton and Axmouth to his last wife, Catherine Parr. Seaton manor was later sold to John Fry (a relative of hers), who sold them to John Willoughby of Payhembury and Gittisham. John’s grandson (also John) set about reclaiming Seaton marshes in the 15th century. 300 boatloads of stone were moved to the marshes from Beer and one-third of the estuary was reclaimed.

The living of Axmouth was given to the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary of Mountbourg in Normandy and in 1414 it was transferred to Sion Abbey in Middlesex until 1539, when Henry VIII gave it to Catherine Parr. It was sold by Edward VI to Walter Erle in 1552, who left it to his great nephew who had the same name. Eventually it passed to Sir Walter Yonge in 1679 and then to R. Hallett, who lived at Stedcombe House (built in 1695).

“The Burrow” (sometimes called, erroneously, the Moridunum) was erected by the Willoughbys in 1627, when there were fears of a French invasion.

The manor of Seaton was inherited by John Willoughby’s eldest daughter in 1682. She had married George Trevelyan and this was the start of a long association of the Trevelyan family with Seaton. When their son John reached his majority, he started salt workings on the marshes after a break of nearly six hundred years. This was because France had been a major supplier of salt to England but relations with France were so bad that it was thought best to find local salt making facilities.

AD 1700 – AD1900

Salt working began in 1704 but ended after a brief 2 years because a tax of 75% had made salt too expensive and, therefore, uneconomical to farm. However, it was re-started in 1709 and flourished for around 50 years thereafter. This led to the appointment of Salt Officers (similar to Customs Officers) who were based in Seaton.

Salt was a valuable commodity that had to be watched over carefully by the Salt Officers so that the correct tax and duty was paid. This inevitably led to smugglers wanting to get in on the act so they broadened their activities to include smuggling salt as well as their usual expensive alcohol and luxuries brought in by sea from abroad or claimed from sinking or pirated ships and hidden in the caves around Beer and Branscombe.

The first known painting of Seaton is by William Stukeley who painted from White Cliff to the east between Seaton and Beer in 1723. An engraving of this painting appears in “The Book of the Axe” though Pulman disputes its topography. At this time, the Axe river was said to be half a mile wide and the painting shows four salt pans as well as a watchtower on the site of The Burrow/Moridunum.

The salt pans in Seaton flourished until the mid-1700s, when George, the son of (now Sir) John Trevelyan inherited the land from his father. Sir George sold the manor to Thomas Charter in 1788 but in 1836 the legality of this sale was challenged. A law suit followed and in 1844, in an Act of Parliament, the sale was set aside and the parts of the manor that had not been sold reverted to the Trevelyan family.

In 1790 a landslip, somewhat lesser known than the Undercliff, occurred between Beer and Branscombe – the Hooken landslip.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, John Hallett, lord of the manor of Axmouth, attempted improvements to the mouth of the Axe. A pier was built in 1803 and the entrance to the harbour was dredged. The harbour was used as a port until late into the nineteenth century, when it was not unknown for 4 or 5 ships of up to 100 tons to be moored at the same time. A large part of the pier disappeared in a storm in 1869 and the harbour continued to silt up. The harbour was once so busy that Axmouth alone is said to have boasted 14 inns (there are now only 2 remaining).

In 1824 a gale in Seaton was described by John Trotandot (a pseudonym for G.P.R. Pulman) as “the sea flowing up the street to such a depth that people had to be rescued from their bedroom windows, and the river and sea met over the Marshes and caused the loss of many cattle, though Seaton suffered little as compared with other places”.

The Great Landslip occurred on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day 1839 and this is dealt with in detail elsewhere. Queen Victoria came on her yacht from the Isle of Wight to see the great chasm, though she did not land. Local farmers charged visitors 6d to visit the site and sometimes took as much as £7 per day. There is a series of lithographs of the landslip, a set of which is in the Devon Record Office.

Pulman also mentions that on 25 August 1840 the landslip was “celebrated” when corn was reaped on the outlying island (Goat Island) by girls dressed as nymphs. “Thousands of people were present, booths were erected, bands played and the affair was as much a jubilation as if in honor (sic) of some great national or local achievement”. Some of the stalks of wheat harvested were mounted on cards and sold for one shilling each by a Mr Toms, stationer, of Chard.

It should also be noted that a preacher in London printed a sermon drawing attention to the “mighty earthquake near Axmouth” and calling it a “judgment and warning from God to a wicked generation”!

A special piece of music was commissioned for the celebrations – “The Lobster Quadrille” – but, alas, no copies of this music have ever been found.

In 1841 Seaton was shown in the Census as having a population of 765 which included not only the usual agricultural labourers and fishermen but also a lime burner, a cooper and four shoemakers. 50 inhabitants were over the age of 65 and the oldest was 90 years old and still working as an agricultural labourer.

By 1845 the manor of Seaton had passed to Sir Walter Trevelyan and his wife Pauline. Pauline was only 19 when she married Sir Walter, who was then 20 years older than her, but this was a love match and they set about developing a seaside retreat in Seaton together. He was a well-known geologist and Pauline was a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites. They felt it was their duty to modernise Seaton and wanted to create a spa to attract upper-class visitors. There was already a local bath-house (with hot and cold water) but Trevelyan had it rebuilt. He improved the sewerage system and rebuilt the esplanade. Over the next 30 years he invested a great deal of his time and money in the village, including building a school and housing.

Sir Walter and Pauline had Check House (originally called Calverly Lodge), which some say was designed by John Ruskin, built as their seaside residence between 1864 and 1866.

Sir Walter was a keen advocate of the use of concrete and in 1877 he had built, over the river between Axmouth and Seaton, what is now the oldest concrete bridge in the country. This was a toll bridge until 1907 when S. Sanders Stephens (of Stephens Ink fame), who was then Lord of the Manor, paid £2,200 towards a total sum raised of £5000 to free the bridge from tolls – the cause of much celebration.

The Trevelyans entertained a great deal and amongst their visitors in Seaton were Thomas Carlyle and Florence Nightingale. They numbered amongst their friends Tennyson, Christina Rosetti, Millais and William Morris’s wife Jane. The Dowager Lady Ashburton lived at Seafield Lodge, just a few hundred metres away from Check House and she also mentions entertaining Mr and Mrs Carlyle.

Pauline surprisingly pre-deceased her husband, dying abroad in 1866 and Sir Walter could not bear to return to Seaton, where they had been so happy and he never visited the village again, although he still made money available to pay for various projects.

From the mid 1800s the middle classes steadily moved into Seaton (and some of the working class made their way up the social ladder). The railway arrived in Seaton in 1868 and this hastened the change from village to town and from an undeveloped fishing and farming village into a seaside town. However, this also had the effect of drastically cutting down the visits of small ships to Axmouth Harbour.

By 1870 Seaton had 51 lodging houses and 6 hotels. In 1871 the Bank Holiday Act was passed which encouraged even more people to visit the coast. At this time it was common for families to rent accommodation for several weeks in the summer, bringing with them their own servants, with Father visiting on odd days or weekends. The next 50 years saw Seaton as a thriving holiday town.

Chambers Journal of 27 October 1888 contains reference to a proposed canal from Bridgwater Bay to Seaton and there are workbooks showing the cost of preparing this proposal. This was discussed again in 1928 but nothing came of either proposal.

AD 1900 - 2005

The town sent many young men to the First World War, 24 of them dying in battle, though the town itself came through the experience relatively unscathed.

Electricity arrived in Seaton in the 1920s. In 1934 the first holiday camp in the country was opened by Captain Harry Warner. There had been camps – more of the tent variety – in existence before this date, but this was the first of the “hi di hi” variety. In 1938 Parliament passed a Act giving all industrial workers one week’s paid holiday and this helped to increase the occupancy of the camp, which by now had Billy Butlin on its board. A few months later, Butlin built his first holiday camp in Skegness, which is still in existence today.

The camp boosted the economy of the town for many years. It was requisitioned as an internment camp for classified aliens in October 1939 when it was surrounded a high barbed wire fence for the duration of the war.

Seaton saw an influx of 150 child evacuees during the very first months of the war followed by others later. Some of these chose to stay on in the town after the war ended. Devon was subjected to many air raids during the war and Seaton was hit once by a German raider which was aiming for the naval gun on Cliff Field to the west of the town (which had been disguised as a house). The plane missed the gun emplacement but scored a direct hit on a nearby house (where Jubilee Gardens now stands). The family inside were all killed. Other bombs fell in the town but did not cause casualties.

The period after the end of the Second World War was a period of decline for many English seaside towns, including Seaton, particularly when the railway line was closed in 1966. By this time, cheap foreign holidays had become available and seaside towns came to be regarded as an old-fashioned way to spend holidays, not to mention not having the benefit of the climate of southern Europe.

Part of the old railway branch line was taken over by the Seaton Tramway Company. The small trams, which now run on the scenic route from Seaton to Colyton along the Axe Valley, arrived in 1970, having been transferred from Eastbourne, where they were no longer wanted on the seafront. Since then the Tramway has become a major tourist attraction which carries more than 100,000 passengers each year.

In February 1979 Seaton was hit by an enormous storm - 43 homes, 29 businesses, 240 self-catering chalets and 250 dormer chalets were inundated by water. Following this, a new sea wall was built and, whilst this secured the town against flooding, it was unpopular with tourists who had enjoyed driving their cars straight on to the beach and could now no longer so.

Several national businesses set up in Seaton during the last half of the twentieth century, but its lack of infrastructure and its increasing change to a retirement town, meant that they rarely lasted very long. New houses and bungalows sprang up but there were few employment opportunities in the town. Racal set up an electronics factory but this closed in 2000 with the loss of 109 jobs. Since then no other major employer has arrived in the town.

The whole eastern part of the town, comprising approximately 15 hectares is now classified as a Regeneration Area and feasibility studies have recommended that a World Heritage Coast Visitor Centre should be built together with housing, shops, small businesses and community facilities.

The town now has 6,800 inhabitants and has somehow never lost its original charm and looks forward to a reinvigorated future when regeneration finally takes off.