Seahouses is a small holiday town (or large village) on the scenic Northumberland coast about halfway between Bamburgh and Beadnell.

A former fishing village, it is now best known as the embarkation point for tourist boat trips to the Farne Islands, famous for puffins and other seabirds.

Seahouses’ fishermen used to join the Scottish fishing fleet to hunt enormous shoals of herring during their annual migration down the North Sea coastline.

By the time the fishing fleet reached Seahouses it could number 300 boats and, in the 1890s, the harbour was constructed to provide shelter for the visiting boats.

Cargo vessels used to pick up barrels of salted herring packed by the village’s “herring lassies” for sale in places like Russia and Germany. The industry began to decline in the 1930s.

Seahouses has long lured wealthy naturalist, birdwatcher and artistic types but it was not until the 1920s that the village started to attract the bucket-and-spade brigade, thanks to a branch railway line that was in existence until 1951.

Although the permanent population is around 1,800 it swells to around three times that number during the summer high season. They are accommodated in numerous bed-and-breakfasts, self-catering apartments, guesthouses, Airbnbs, hotels and a couple of sprawling caravan parks.

Thankfully, the pristine beaches, which stretch for miles either side of Seahouses, are vast enough to make the area seem uncrowded.

To be honest, Seahouses is not the quaintest fishing village in the country and it has a somewhat workaday look to it but there are a few highlights.

Like nearby Craster, Seahouses is famous for its smoked fish and the Swallow Fish Traditional Smokehouse, established in 1843, is possibly where the modern kipper was invented. Homemade kipper pâté is one of its specialties.

The Olde Ship is one of several pubs in the village. There are also three fish-and-chip shops and a number of other restaurants and cafés.

You can even learn to scuba dive here. Apparently, the Farne Islands are one of the best places to dive in the UK.

A safe distance away from the village is the powder house built in 1886 to store the gunpowder used in blasting for the construction of the harbour walls.

This article first appeared on Thrifty Traveller.