Unusual catches made a big splash with locals

Then in 1840, at Newbiggin, the ebbing tide left by the Church Rocks a rare 70-pound Opah (King Fish).

While it still lived, its colours were said to be brilliant and people from all around the locality flocked to see it.

The King Fish had a vermilion head, greenish violet back, greenish silver sides, large forked tale and fins brightly dazzling and a flecking of white spots all over it.

Its mouth, large enough to admit a hand, was "as smooth as polished marble," toothless, but with a tongue covered with short prickles that leaned backwards towards the throat.

Then there was the turbot, caught by Robert Oliver of Newbiggin in May 1842. This specimen was offered for sale at Morpeth Market by Alice Dawson. It was five-feet long, three-feet across, seven inches thick and seven stone two pounds in weight.

Lynemouth or Cresswell, however, claims the largest capture from the sea, in the form of a monumental Spermaceti Whale, 61ft in length, over 37ft in girth and 12ft in height as it lay on the beach. Its tail was 14ft across.

It was August 8, 1822, when this giant put in an appearance offshore. Why it should have turned up at all, no one knew. It is difficult to imagine that during the time it was caught, Northumberland looked like Greenland. However, there it was, proceeding nor'-nor'-west at a stately quarter knot when it was observed from the shore. There was at once great excitement in the neighbourhood, not least among the landed proprietors, who coveted so rich a prize.

The great creature touched shore at the south side of the Lyn, on the property of the delighted Ralph Atkinson of Lynemouth, and then it drifted off again! When it finally came to rest on the beach, it lay on the property of AJ Cresswell of Cresswell, who was as delighted as R Atkinson was chagrined.

Both insisted, both demanded, both rushed to the law and a formidable dispute was building up when the Admiralty intervened, seized the oil (nine tons 158 gallons) and decorated the bones with broad arrows, and that was that. The bones were later handed over to Mr Cresswell, who raised them on a stone platform in his ground at Cresswell.

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