Seacoast is only 18 miles long
— — 18 miles of granite and salt the country almost forgets.
Not only on a wall.
“New Hampshire's seacoast runs about 18 miles, the shortest ocean coast of any U.S. state that has one. It starts at the Massachusetts line at Seabrook and ends at the Piscataqua River, where Portsmouth meets Kittery, Maine. Hampton, Rye, and New Castle hold the middle. Route 1A traces the whole line in under an hour. From the studio, it reads as a small coast that punches well above its length.
Seacoast is only 18 miles long, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The New Hampshire seacoast is approximately 18 miles long, measured as the linear shoreline between the Massachusetts state line at Seabrook and the Piscataqua River mouth at Portsmouth. It is the shortest ocean coast of any of the 23 coastal U.S. states. The shore runs through five communities: Seabrook, Hampton, North Hampton, Rye, and New Castle, then into Portsmouth. Route 1A, signed as Ocean Boulevard, follows the granite headlands and the sand beaches. Odiorne Point State Park in Rye preserves the largest undeveloped stretch and marks the site of New Hampshire's first English settlement, founded in 1623.
The water is North Atlantic, cold all year, with August surface temperatures rarely above 65 degrees Fahrenheit and February near freezing at the inlets. The Isles of Shoals sit about six miles offshore, straddling the New Hampshire and Maine line, and have been worked by lobstermen out of Portsmouth and Rye for four centuries. The Piscataqua River, the northern boundary of the coast, runs one of the fastest tidal currents in the country, with flows reaching seven knots through Portsmouth Harbor. Striped bass, mackerel, and bluefish come through the summer; lobster pots run through the year.
Route 1A runs the full coast in roughly an hour without traffic, longer with it. Hampton Beach State Park anchors the south end with its boardwalk and summer crowds; Wallis Sands and Jenness Beach in Rye are quieter family beaches; New Castle holds the Wentworth-by-the-Sea hotel on a small island reached by causeway. Portsmouth, at the north end, runs Strawbery Banke, Market Square, and the working naval shipyard across the Piscataqua. The Coastal Byway is busiest the first two weekends of August; spring and early autumn read better from a studio's point of view.