Rock House, Seaham

Rock House has the appearance of an elegant detached stone-built private house of the Victorian Age, present on the Ordnance Survey map of the late 1850s. In the inter-war years it was adopted as a new independent local centre for social improvement, at a time when unemployment was high and educational facilities poor. The figure behind this pioneering project was Lettice Jowitt from Gateshead, and the Centre received particular attention from J.B.Priestley when he visited Seaham.

In his English Journey, published in 1935, he introduces Rock House as follows:

"These settlements or Community Houses are not being run by people who are being elaborately good to the poor. There is about them no Fairchild Family atmosphere. Older readers of this book who do not happen to be acquainted with our distressed industrial areas will do well here if they recall the war years. In these unhappy districts there is a war on, and the allied enemies are poverty, idleness, ignorance, hopelessness and misery. East Durham, like the Tyne, is one of the liveliest fronts."

He goes on to detail some of the work being done there:

"Once inside that advance post, the settlement house, I stayed on and on there, not taking note of what they were doing, for their activities were like others elsewhere, but listening and talking to the front-line troops there.... I was immensely impressed by them all, and especially by the wise and gracious woman who was their captain, by the fresh-faced young man who had come here from another part of the country to take classes in economics and history... by the librarian who had been a miner himself for years... by the German woman who had come to organise the music and to teach its rudiments (she solemnly declared...that these Durham folk were more musical by nature, if not by tradition, than the people in her German town), and by the enthusiastic young man who ran the dramatic side.... There was such a rushing stream of talk it is difficult to remember a tenth of what was said..."

The 'settlement' movement was intially led by universities, and in the North-East included centres for education at Gateshead (Bensham Grove) and Durham. Lettice Jowett (sister of Sir William Jowett, Labour Minister for Reconstruction in 1942) was Warden at the Gateshead settlement, before founding Rock House. This was not university-supported, but depended on funds from the Pilgrim Trust, which bought the property from the Londonderrys in 1931. The tutors referred to by Priestley above were volunteers, usually undergraduates or graduates doing a sort of community service.

The aim of such projects was social improvement by providing educational and cultural facilities, especially for the unemployed. A good account of the usefulness of their classes is provided by George Hitchin in his autoboigraphy A Pityacker (1962); after working in the pits in the 1920s, he found the education and stimulus of Rock House helped him qualify for office work at a time Seaham Colliery was at a standstill; and he gives a glowing testimony to the staff and their work. In 1933, courses included economics, drama, nature study, music, art, country dancing and physical training. Lettice Jowitt herself was convinced of the benefits of cross-country walks and fresh air and arranged camping and rambling holidays e.g. in Teesdale. Recalling an image used by Plato, she said of these expeditions:

"We...are chained in caves in towns, where we shall see only the shadows of the values of life, and too often take them for our realities. Let us on our holidays break our chains, turn around and see the realities, the eternl truth and beauty of rock and dale..."

It is likely the curriculum changed to more domestic subjects during the War, and after that - under the direction of the County Education Authority - it continued to play a useful community role as a meeting place for local groups of all kinds. A few copies of the Rock House, Seaham, Magazine for young and old survive from around 1960, by which time they were furthering a range of hobbies and special interests - including the Seaham Photographic Society, an Amateur Fencing Club, Seaham Ladies Lifeboat Guild, a Youth Club, a Scooter Club (30 members), etc.

An introductory note by J.S.Goodwin comments:

"We can rejoice that the Centre is now a thriving happy place, where comradeship and fellowship can be found....
Rock House will continue to flourish and accomplish the ideals which Lettice Jowitt set in our midst - seeking to grow in mental and physical stature, and in our growing seeking to serve those with whom we live."

A great example of this continuing initiative was the 'History of Seaham' compiled at Rock House with the help of the community as a whole in 1978 (the 150th anniversary of the founding of Seaham Harbour). This has never been published, but circulates the town in some half dozen photocopies, and is a lively mix of local information and historical articles.

In the new century, it seems Rock House faces a crisis. In 2003, a surveyors report is being commissioned by the County Council to see if the premises is worthy of saving. We can only quote the words of the editor of the Rock House magazine, A. Reay, back in 1960:

the town would be poorer without Rock House