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The Doves had owned Arnold's Close in 1621; this was the field which later became the village of Cullercoats. In their day the village was a coal port, exporting the production of Whitley Pit, and also used cheap local coal to boil sea -water for the salt. When the pier collapsed in 1710 the trade was ruined, but the Doves' enterprises had already taken them further afield. In 1792 Eleanor Dove married the Rev Curwen Hudleston, of Scaleby, Cumberland, and when the line died out in 1867 their relative, Dr John Simpson, changed his name to Hudleston. He was the father of Wilfrid H. Hudleston, who died in 1909.

HARBOUR, Cullercoats

On the picture below, you can see a queue down onto the beach which appears to be waiting to enter the Dove Marine Laboratory. That, presumably, places the date of the photograph between 28th September 1908 and 11th August 1910.

The original laboratory was created in 1897, and used by Armstrong College to study the coastal waters. On the 28th March 1904 the original Marine Laboratory was gutted by fire. It had been a fairly small wooden shed at one end of the old-established Salt Water Baths. The Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee and Armstrong College, Newcastle, had worked together to open the Marine Zoology Department, to study the coastal waters with special reference to the development and improvement of the local fishing industry, in 1897.

 

With the destruction of their work, in 1906 the local landowner, geologist Wilfrid H. Hudleston, agreed not only to make the site of the Baths available for a new, larger, Laboratory, but offered to finance the construction. Mr Hudleston was a scientist himself, although his interests lay primarily in ornithology and geology. He was reluctant to publicise his generosity, and asked that the building be named after one of his ancestors, Eleanor Dove, when it opened in September 1908.

The presence of a derrick on the cliff top in the distance suggests that the photograph might have been taken during the improvements of 1909 - 1910. The Council borrowed £1600 to protect the cliffs and sea banks. Mr Hudleston had expressed himself in favour, but asked that the fine section of strata near the Ninety Fathom Dyke be as little covered as possible.

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