Places to explore near Sunderland

Long curving Victorian breakwater at Sunderland with a red-and-white lighthouse and a hidden tunnel beneath.

2.5 km NE

Hundred acres of wetland, wood and meadow on the Wear, home to wild birds, flamingos and otters.

6.6 km W

Greek-temple folly on a prominent hill.

6.8 km W

Sea-glass beach and the 'Tommy' war statue.

7.1 km SE

Opened near Sunderland in 1871 as the world's first lighthouse purpose-built to use alternating electric current, its red-and-white bands now cared for by the National Trust.

7.3 km N

Great sea-stack of magnesian limestone standing off Marsden Bay, loud with nesting kittiwakes and cormorants.

8 km N

Ray Lonsdale's weathered-steel First World War soldier sitting on Seaham seafront, head bowed.

8 km SE

Two and a half miles of clifftop grassland and limestone stacks along the coast from South Shields to Souter.

8.1 km N

Headland south of Seaham looking over the once-blackened, now-recovering sands of Blast Beach.

10.1 km S

Coast to coast along the Roman frontier, milecastle by milecastle.

12.2 km NW · Northumberland, Cumbria & Tyne and Wear

Priory ruin on a headland above the sea.

12.7 km N

Handsome coastal town of grand terraces and a lively Front Street above the sands and priory headland.

12.8 km N · Tyne and Wear

Antony Gormley's rust-red steel angel, 20 metres tall with a 54-metre wingspan, watching the A1 into Gateshead.

13.4 km W

Tilting 'blinking eye' footbridge that arcs across the Tyne between the Quayside and BALTIC.

15.6 km NW

Vast converted flour mill on the Gateshead quay, now a free contemporary art gallery with a rooftop view.

15.6 km NW

Norman Foster's curved glass-and-steel concert hall on the Gateshead riverbank, formerly Sage Gateshead.

15.7 km NW

The great green steel arch of 1928 that frames the Newcastle skyline, forerunner of Sydney's harbour bridge.

15.9 km NW

White-domed Edwardian pleasure dome on Whitley Bay seafront, restored to eateries and a tearoom.

16.3 km N

Steep wooded valley park in Newcastle along the Ouseburn, with waterfalls, ruins and old woodland.

16.3 km NW

The largest ancient woodland in north-east England, a deep wooded ravine running down to the coast at Horden.

17.3 km S

Vast open-air museum near Stanley recreating northern life across the 1820s, 1900s and 1940s with trams and shops.

17.9 km W

The world's oldest railway, now a heritage steam line through the Causey valley from Europe's oldest engine shed.

18.8 km W

An island light off Whitley Bay reached by a causeway at low tide, a Tyneside landmark switched off in 1984 and now open to visitors.

18.9 km N

A cathedral city looped by the River Wear, its Norman cathedral and castle rising together above the wooded riverbanks and cobbled Bailey.

19 km SW · County Durham

The great Norman cathedral on its rock above the Wear, shrine of St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede.

19.3 km SW

The world's oldest surviving railway bridge of 1726, a single stone arch high above the wooded Causey Burn.

19.6 km W

Graceful three-arch bridge over the Wear giving Durham's most-painted view of cathedral and wooded banks.

19.7 km SW

Vanbrugh's last great baroque house, a bold pile of towers and columns near the Northumberland coast

20.6 km N

A Georgian landscape estate with a ruined hall and Palladian chapel by James Paine.

22 km W

One path around a whole country — beach, clifftop and seawall the entire way round England's coast, opening stretch by stretch.

0.3 km N · spans 24 counties

The Wear from mouth to moor — Roker pier to Cowshill, passing beneath Durham Cathedral on the way up the dale.

0.4 km N · County Durham & Tyne and Wear

A Site of Special Scientific Interest in County Durham.

2.7 km SE

Hylton Castle: a medieval fortified house, chapel, 17th and 18th century country houses and associated gardens

4.3 km NW

A country park in Tyne and Wear.

5.5 km SW

Contemporary inn near Seaham, a comfortable stop for the Durham coast.

6.9 km S

One of England’s oldest churches, its Saxon nave surviving at Old Seaham, a little north of the harbour town.

6.9 km S

Bar and eating house half-cut into the sea cliff at Marsden Bay, reached by cliff lift or steps.

7.9 km N