How to spend 48 hours on the Tyneside Coast, England

It’s said that the medieval abbots of St Albans monastery used to banish wayward monks to Tynemouth Priory as a punishment. The bone-chilling fret was seen as a test of faith, as recounted in one monk’s letter lamenting the ‘dim eyes [and] hoarse voices’ he encountered. Yet fast-forward 700 years and there is nowhere more coveted in the North East than Tyneside’s coast.

Bijou Tynemouth regularly joins neighbouring Whitley Bay – both less than 15km from Newcastle – in topping ‘Best Place to Live’ tables in the kind of broadsheets who love to quantify such things. And while it’s true that the boutiques, galleries, cafés and bookshops on Front Street and Park View give the area a community feel, visitors benefit too. The crowds may fill the sands in summer, but locals give them life year-round.

You can see this daily in the surf schools on Longsands and the legions of cold-water swimmers, or the kayak tours and beachfront saunas, or the suppers served fireside on the sand. Though the resident seals may disagree, this coast is more than a place to flop. And while the monks saw none of this, neither did I until recently.

I was born on this coast, though I left as a young boy. All I recalled from my time here was the sight of the brilliant-white dome of Whitley Bay’s Spanish City, then home to a ragged theme park and bingo hall. Today, it’s filled with restaurants, craft-beer pubs and a champagne bar – a far cry from the seaside kitsch of before.

What I didn’t appreciate was the depth of history found here. Standing amid the oversized gravestones on Tynemouth’s headland, the wind whipping at your ankles, you can gaze over to where the ruins of a medieval priory and castle give way to a gun battery, affixed to the cliffs during the Second World War. Medieval pilgrims once flocked to this spot after the bones of St Oswin were found in a church onsite. For me, it’s here that the coast unravels its secrets at your feet.

To the north, you can see tiny Cullercoats Bay, which still resembles the paintings of the artists who sketched the lives of its fisherfolk at the turn of the 20th century. The waggonway trails beyond now ferry walkers into the countryside where once they ushered horse-drawn carts carrying coal. Head inland or south of the Tyne and you’ll find Roman and industrial treasures, from the last gasps of Hadrian’s Wall to steam railways and the first purpose-built electric lighthouse. Perhaps it’s not such a bad place to be banished after all.

Day 1

Start in Whitley Bay among the indie shops of Park View, grabbing a breakfast cinnamon bun from Pure Knead (pure-knead.co.uk) bakery. Next, take the waggonway from behind Churchill Playing Fields, heading north along a section of the 50km network of paths that once linked the area’s collieries to ships on the Tyne. Follow this to Seaton Delaval Hall to tour a Georgian mansion and gardens built with coal money, then loop down to the sea for low tide (tideschart.com), crossing the causeway to St Mary’s, a 19th-century lighthouse and museum where you can usually spot grey seals on the rocks. Next, follow the coastal path back past the dome of Whitley Bay’s Spanish City and on to the caves and inlets of Cullercoats, once home to a prolific colony of artists. Stroll the surfing mecca of Longsands Beach to Tynemouth to wander its Victorian station’s weekend market and grab some street food. The village is filled with boutiques but its highlight is the ruined Priory, a former medieval pilgrimage site repurposed as a battery in the First and Second World Wars. Finish with dinner on the sands below at Riley’s Fish Shack (rileysfishshack.com) in King Edward’s Bay, where heavenly seafood is served around fire pits on cold northern nights.

Ask a local: Ruth Lunn, local resident

“While the local metro is good for getting around the coast, its stations are also great places for food and drink. Try The Ticket Office at Whitley Bay, the Left Luggage Room at Monkseaton or Platform 2 at Tynemouth for good beer and other drinks. For food, drop by the Dil and the Bear café at Whitley Bay station. And just a few minutes’ walk from Cullercoats is the natural wine bar Kork, which does great charcuterie and cheese, inspired by the owners’ time in Spain.”

Snag a chocolate babka from Baker in the Bay (bakerinthebay.square.site), then shake off the morning rust by renting a Finnish sauna (cbkadventures.co.uk) on the sands of Cullercoats. Alternatively, surf lessons on Longsands are best in winter, when the North Sea is riled up (tynemouthsurf.co.uk). Afterwards, warm up with a fish ’n’ chip supper at Fisherman’s Bay (fishermansbay.co.uk), then detour to the Stephenson Steam Railway in North Shields. This tiny museum has some great relics of rail history (including the world’s third-oldest surviving steam locomotive), and on weekends its steam engine ferries visitors along a short section of track. Further inland, explore the eastern terminus of Hadrian’s Wall at Wallsend’s Segedunum Roman Fort. Or for more Roman history, take the ferry across the Tyne to South Shields, where the site of the second-century fort of Arbeia reopens each March for the summer – though candlelit tours are also run in the off-season. Continue south to visit Souter Lighthouse, the first purpose-built electric lighthouse in the world, and to wander the clifftop trails nearby, then finish back in Whitley Bay with nose-to-tail dining at The Roxburgh (theroxburgh.co.uk) and local beers at The Dog & Rabbit micro-brewery on Park View.

1. Soak up the art history of coastal Tyneside at Newcastle’s Laing Gallery, where the permanent Northern Spirit exhibition includes the work of the Cullercoats art colony (1870–1914), who sketched the lives of the region’s fisherfolk in brine-soaked detail. laingartgallery.org.uk
2. Paddle the coast with CBK, whose kayak tours take in the seals of St Mary’s, the caves of Cullercoats and the Tyne River. Come the cooler months (Oct–Mar), join its Ice-Dip Social, which sees a Finnish tent sauna set up in Cullercoats Bay for some cold-water therapy. cbkadventures.co.uk
3. Ride the world’s oldest operating railway. The 300-year-old Tanfield line began life as a horse-drawn waggonway in 1725, hauling coal from Durham to the Tyne River. Now steam-train rides funnel visitors along its tracks through the valley on the edge of Gateshead (Sundays), accompanied by creamy afternoon teas. tanfield-railway.co.uk
4. Go underground on tours of Ouseburn’s Victoria Tunnel, a network of passages completed in 1842 to ferry coal underground from the Spital Tongues Colliery to the Tyne River. Some 45,000 tonnes of clay were excavated by hand in just three years and turned into the 2.2 million bricks used to build the tunnels. Hear tales of how it was turned into a bomb shelter for local residents in the 1940s. ouseburntrust.org.uk