Seahouses attracts many visitors, mainly from the north east of England. National and international tourists also visit Seahouses while visiting the Northumberland National Park, the Northumberland Coast, and the
Farne Islands. Seahouses also has a working fishing port, which also serves the tourist trade, being the embarkation point for visits to the Farne Islands. From shops in the town and booths along the harbour, several boat companies operate, offering various visitor packages. These may include landing on at least one Farne, seeing
seals and
seabirds, hearing a commentary on the islands and the
Grace Darling story, or scuba diving on the many Farne Islands wrecks. Grace Darling's brother is buried in the cemetery at
North Sunderland. He died in 1903, aged 84. The current Seahouses
lifeboat bears the name
Grace Darling. The Seahouses Festival is an annual cultural event which began in 1999 as a small
sea shanty festival and has since developed into a broader cultural celebration attracting visitors from across the region. There are local claims that
kippers were first created in Seahouses in the 1800s, and they are still produced locally to this day. Between 1898 and 1951, Seahouses was the north-eastern terminus of the
North Sunderland Railway. Independent until its final closure, it formed a
standard gauge rail link between the village and
Chathill Station on the
East Coast Main Line. The site of
Seahouses station is now the town car park and the trackbed between village and North Sunderland is a public footpath. ==Governance==