best beaches in the uk
Posted by on the 23rd April 2011
carista House, Isle of Harris
Not many beaches in Britain can be said to have really white sand, but Luskentyre on the Isle of Harris does, and it’s shot through with rivulets of sea water that sparkle in a hundred hues of blue and bright white light. Framed by the hills of the Outer Hebrides, all the elements combine to create arguably Britain’s most beautiful views. The alien topography goes back three billion years – here are rocks two-thirds as old as the earth itself. The five characterful rooms in converted Georgian manse Scarista House have cosy rugs and warm colours, while the Neolithic-inspired Blue Reef Cottages are a good bet if you fancy spending a week gazing at the stars from your own private sauna and jacuzzi.
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The Seabreeze, Devon
Slapton Sands isn’t actually sandy, but it’s still a beach that’s worth spending a few days exploring, especially if you’re looking for some solitude on this beautiful stretch of packed-to-the-gills Devonshire coast. Caught between the fast-encroaching sea on one side and a huge freshwater lake on the other, the vulnerable, three-mile-long shingle bar is distinguished by its calm beauty and relative peace. Stay at the Seabreeze, where you can hear the sea gently slapping the shingle from rustic blue-and-white painted rooms that will make you think you’re on a Greek island – though outbreaks of Mamma Mia might offend the smoothie-sipping guests at the excellent terrace café.
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The Place at Camber Sands, East Sussex
Hidden behind a mountain of golden dunes, Camber Sands in East Sussex is an awesome sight, a vast, windswept expanse of soft, sandy beach that goes on for miles – seven of them no less – and boasts an impressive half-a-mile width at low tide. Come here for a gorgeous sunset walk in the gentle surf, or to hunker down behind a windbreak, or to ride your horse, fly your kite or act out your 'Lawrence of Arabia' fantasies at the quieter western end of the beach. For a more 'Carry On Follow that Camel' feel (the film was shot here), stick to the eastern end. The Place at Camber Sands is the best accommodation option – an affordable, family-friendly motel-style boutique hotel with a great café/brasserie.
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The Cley Windmill, Norfolk
On the north coast of Norfolk, Holkham gets all the lyrical prose and weekend supplements’ praise for its undoubtedly stunning expanse of sandy beach backed by pine woods and dunes. But if you want to get away from the London set, head east. A few miles will bring you to Blakeney and Cley-next-the-Sea, connected by a three-mile sand and shingle spit from which you can venture out to see the seals at Blakeney Point. Windswept marshes, sea and sand as far as the eye can see make this an atmospheric spot. The Cley Windmill has lovely tower rooms accessed by ladders and filled with colourful rugs and patterns aplenty, offering a welcome change from muted boutiquey tones.
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Primrose Valley Hotel, Cornwall
It’s as old as the hills that rise steeply from it, but the ageing hipsters’ Cornwall town of St Ives still has plenty of draws: two terrific art galleries, picturesque cobbled streets, pubs that serve scrumpy strong enough to make you fall over after a leisurely pint and, of course, one of the loveliest bays in Britain. The Primrose Valley Hotel on Porthminster beach has airy, bright rooms with light modern furniture, good art and, best of all, sparkling sea views.
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Stackpole Inn, Pembrokeshire
Choosing just one Welsh beach location is an obvious insult to this country’s stunning coastline, so we’ll make our selection a good one. Barafundle Bay on the Pembrokeshire coast is utterly spellbinding, a perfect metaphor for a country steeped in folklore and magic. You have to walk along a cliff path from nearby Stackpole Quay and through a stone archway to find it, but once you do, you’ll be transported to another world. Stay at the outwardly twee, inwardly cool Stackpole Inn, a 17th-century coaching inn that also does great food.
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Beach Court, Northumberland
A good beach needs some element of drama, and they don’t come much more dramatic than the towering Bamburgh Castle looming from its craggy perch over the Northumberland coast. More drama is close by at Holy Island, accessed by a low-tide causeway leading to the ancient Lindisfarne Priory and even more golden, deserted beaches. The guesthouses at Bamburgh village all make decent accommodation options; or, better still, book in to the lovely Beach Court, right on the seafront at Beadnell, a few miles south along the coast. Expansive sea views are guaranteed from the wide, wide window seats of all three first-floor rooms.
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Mallondene, West Sussex
With not one but two fabulous beach cafés designed by leading British architects – the West Beach Café by Asif Khan and the undulating, sculptural East Beach Café by Thomas Heatherwick – Littlehampton is fast becoming a foodie haven, and once you’ve eaten your fill of the excellent fish and chips at the former, or more sophisticated dishes at the latter, you can enjoy one of the area’s most beautiful, quietest beaches. Or head out of town to explore Rick Mather’s much-lauded new Towner Gallery in nearby Eastbourne. Stay in one of the two sea-view rooms at the dinky Mallondene guesthouse, where owners Jenny and Gabrielle will make you feel like you’re in your home rather than theirs. Alternatively, the small, very pretty Slindon campsite, set in the orchards of the National Trust-owned Slindon Estate between Arundel and Chichester, offers beautiful views across the coastal plain of West Sussex.
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I know Slapton and it is nice but very open to strong winds
St. Ives in Cornwall is beautiful and the town with it's so narrow streets is enchanting.
The coastal areas of west Wales too are lovely but the one beach I enjoyed as much as any when I lived there was Rhosilli on the Gower coast.
A wide expanse of firm sand and usually (back then at least )very quiet with not many people trecking down the steep climb to the beach.
I now live in Western Australia where there are beautiful white sandy beaches but you can't lay around on them for 4 months of the year as it's too bloody hot and you'd get burnt to a frazzle in about 10 minutes. There's no Utopia believe me.
Troiuble with australian beaches are the great big sharks swiming about waiting for a human drumstick to appear.
Same with egypt but their partial to fat germans and russians
Vatersay and the Isle Of Barra in the Western Isles and the locals aren't dour, miserable Wee Frees so that makes it even better :-)
cocoman recons barry island is thr best beach in the world, full of benefits sponges and neredo wells
Wrong! The Benefit Scroungers don't go to Barry, they go to the Caribbean,Hawaiian Islands and other places like Africa and India. This is the problem that must be stopped. Anyone on state handouts should live on the bread line, live in poverty, or the workhouse!
yeah ok nutter
Porthcurno Beach or Sennen Cove, both in Cornwall
ahhhh the sand between your toes and the sound of lapping water on the shore.
Are you real Russell?
Or I forget to mention the smell of chavs on the beach, BBQ, chips and cheap perfume and sweat. ahhh welcome to the Gower, and fat people in shorts and toooo small tshirts
Listed above are really some beautiful and must visit UK beaches ..Also i am not wrong many are within easy reach of London.Kumarakom
I read last week that Port Eynon on Gower had been voted the best beach in Britain. Now I'm a big fan of Gower, despite the derogatory remarks on here about it, and to my mind the most wonderful beach there is undoubtedly Three Cliffs Bay.
A few years back it had been voted the best view in Britain by readers of the Observer newspaper, and I agreed wholeheartedly.
Anyway, it would be nice to see some threads on here that are not turned into slanging matches and attacks on the unemployed by a crazed element with an axe to grind. This thread is about the wonderful beaches and other scenery that Britain has to offer the world. It's got damn all to do with chavs swanning around in Barry Island.
Exactly, I put the post up to sell the delights of out wonderful island. Everyone deserves to go to the beach but some people would have them locked up.
Ahhhh memories of the sand-dunes at Newton Porthcawl. Not a very nice beach but great memories of a childhood spent with not a care in the world. Caravans with no mod cons, just gas mantles, pull down beds and a trek to the loo in the middle of the night............unless you had a little cupboard with a pee bucket in ! ! !
Porthcawl has seen better days that's for sure. I was there some years ago and it looked quite run down to me. Anyway, back in the 1950s, during miners' and factory fortnight, it was called Shwmaesville or Hiyabutt Bay.
Package deal holidays to the Mediterranean were unheard of then, so Porthcawl was the Valleys-On-Sea; a magical place for kids, with caravans of all shapes and sizes tucked away in the dunes of Trecco Bay and Newton. Many of those caravans were homemade as I recall; lashed up by enthusiasts who somehow gained permission to site them anywhere they could fit them in.
The character of the site was lost when they removed the sand dunes, because they were part of the charm and the thrill of Porthcawl. Walks across to Nottage and Ogmore along the beach when the tide was out was another memory that sticks in my mind.
Looking back on it, they weren't exactly the most beautiful of beaches, but it was all we knew then. I didn't get to go to Gower until I was about fourteen years old, and Pembrokeshire I discovered a few years later.
The sea off the beaches of Porthcawl was particularly dangerous, with treacherous undercurrents that would drag the unwary out to sea if they ventured too far from shore. I remember that there were drownings every year, during the aforementioned peak holiday time especially, so parents were particularly wary when their children were swimming there.
The pubs were said to water the beer down during that fortnight, as they had a captive customer base with the miners and factory workers. How true that is I've no idea because I was a kid then and not allowed the demon drink, but I used to hear rumours from the adults who would complain about the weak beers they were drinking.
With the recession set in these days, and money being tight, it's possible that Porthcawl will experience a revival in its fortunes if people decide to stay at home instead of flying off to the Med or further afield. However, what may ruin such a revival is if the caravan owners and hotels and guest houses decide to hike their prices up. In which case there'll be no point in chosing Porthcawl (or anywhere else in Britain for that matter) for a holiday because you'll be back in the same boat again.
Wales has some fabulous beaches all over, as well as mountains and lakes; a scenery that changes around every corner. I'd recommend a drive from the tip of Anglesey down to Cardiff Bay to appreciate the full majesty of this wonderful country of ours.
There's just one fly in the ointment, and that's the bloody weather. The scenery is fantastic, but lousy in the pouring rain and the driving wind, and you can't see much of it when it's covered in damp mists.
That said, on those lucky days when the sun shines, you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world as lovely.
I agree. I went camping up to mid Wales the other day and then took a scenic drive over to Aberystwyth, it was spectacular. Like we say, we don't know and appreciate what's on our doorstep.
When the Benefits stop in 2013, the people who travel all over the world on the tax I pay, will be thumbing lifts to Porthcawl and knocking up some sheds to sleep in again. We will call it, the "Workhouse Week"
Put a sock in it benefits boy, we is talking about beaches not giro's. You know golden grainy stuff thats cool on the feet and soft to lie on.
Sand is for mixing with cement to lay bricks. Some of us don't have time to play with the stuff. I don't have holidays, I think it's money down the drain! The good old days in Porthcawl is rubbish from what I hear about it.
When I was a kid in the school holidays, we used to knock old peoples doors and run away, or if there was a good film on the TV we would sneak into gardens and turn the arial so people couldn't watch it, then hide at the end of the street to see them all trying to get a reception. That was fun.
I'm not talking about the good old days of Porthcawl. All I will say is that at the time it was all we knew. We didn't know what it was like to wake up in a Mediterranean resort, knowing that the sun was going to shine for the next fortnight, and the sea was warm, clean and clear.
All that came much later as our living standards improved, and the cost of foreign holidays made staying in this country uncompetitive. Very few people were on benefits then as work was plentiful, and wages were relatively decent. If you were on benefits it was either through incapacity, or you didn't want to work and the state in its folly made it easy for you not to work.
I know that once I'd sampled the hot sun and the warm seas, the tavernas and the Mediterranean lifestyle of sitting out on a plaza in Italy or Greece sipping red wine, what Britain had to offer soon lost its allure.
I still love our scenery, the beaches of Gower and Pembrokeshire especially, but as I've already pointed out, the rain, and over the past three or four years, the cold weather of our summers, has put me right off wanting to go on holidays here.
I spent five days up in North Wales back in the beginning of June. We travelled all over the Lleyn peninsular, the Llanberis Pass, Betws Y Coed, Beddgelert, Barmouth, Aberystwyth, and it was brilliant. We stayed at a hotel in Cemaes Bay on Anglesey; a lovely place, but the weather was so damn cold that we couldn't sit out on the veranda of the hotel without our teeth chattering.
As we all agree, if only we had weather like the Med here, why would we want to go abroad? But of course, the geographical location of Britain means that such weather will be but a dream. When we do get exceptional years like 1976, we look back on it as some kind of golden age.
Unfortunately, our weather seems to be getting worse not better, which makes me ask, with all this talk about global warming, where's our share of it?
*
Probably spent his holidays in Borstal ! ! !
Cocoman.."we would sneak into gardens and turn the arial so people couldn't watch it", so you were trespassing then, and tampering with other peoples property! So you are a criminal then.
Quote from you from another thread...."If a person commits a crime, no matter how young that person is, or how trivial the offence, there should be no rehabilitation. The only way that criminal can live is by stealing, so the law can lock them up. When they are released from prison, they will have to steal again, not claim benefits. Eventually they will be locked up permanently! That is then sending out the correct message to anyone who is thinking about committing a crime in the future! ".
Anyway, back to the discussion at hand, Tenby it is for me. It is unfortunate we do not always have the weather, but I do love Tenby, South beach in particular.
For rent one baseball bat with six inch nails through ready to cave in one member of this forums head. You can arrange to collect and return to me for destroying by dropping me a message.
Isn't Slapton Sands the place where over 900 US troops were accidentally killed while practicing for the D-Day landings in 1944 ?
Yes, Slapton was the beach where that tradgedy happened.
At the one end of the beach there is an American tank placed there to commemorate the incident. I have a photo at home taken standing in front of the tank with my two sons.
My older son Gareth lives in Torquay and we very often visit the area when I'm back in the UK.
I've got fond memories of Tenby too. Back in the 1960s when I and all my mates joined the hippie army we used to hitch hike down to Tenby every bank holiday. In fact, young people from all over South Wales used to head down there.
It was one of those spontaneous events, nobody organised anything, it just happened. We used to sleep in the sand dunes, have beach parties when the coppers weren't chasing us out of town, because they didn't want a horde of drug crazed hippies invading their town and stealing all the women, and although the pubs were closed on Sundays back in those days, we'd stock up on cans and bottles of wine the night before, and a merry time was had by one and all.
This went on for a couple of years: the bank holiday arrived, and it was grab a sleeping bag, meet up by Hirwaun roundabout on the Friday night, and off we went, to arrive in Tenby at any time of night, or sleep in a bus shelter if you weren't lucky enough to pick up a lift.
Yes, Tenby was a great crack back then.
There used to be a little cottage on the top of the cliff looking down on Rhossili Beach with a tea garden, which was run by two old ladies who made cream teas. Funny how things often stick in your memory.
I love Tenby, we were there for a couple of days at the beginning of July, you remember those two days of warm summer weather. Only go there if there is a good weather forcast and our favourite hotel has rooms available, it's always last minute booking. Dog friendly hotel and a dog friendly pub in the Crown. Great beer and a friendly welcome.
Half an hour drive from Tenby will get you to Freshwater West. What a fantastic beach, only problem on a busy day is parking. Pembroke has some fantastic beaches slightly off the tourist trail which are quiet with very few screaming kids.
Mind you with the kids I've got living next door to me a day at the Castlemartin ranges would be more restful.
Oxwich is the beach where we strangle and drown one member of this forum
Good beer, cream teas, warm welcome. Are you people that stupid that you can't see that they are ripping you off?
Did somebody say something ! ! !!
It was a bit of wind, generated by too much bullsh!t
How about Abersoch Beach, grt boating, lovely sandy beach with beach huts, lovely sparkling water can see the sea bottom, blue flag,many things going on through out the summer,Jazz festival,Wakestock, Glass butter beach festival,parking facilites, pony trekking, golf,cafe, and these are all on the beach and then U have Abersoch village for the shopping and pressie buying lol xx
Blackrock sands near barmouth, nice to drive through the surf in a big 4x4, even better with the builder on this site with a rope round his neck and going deeper into the water to muffle his screams.
Yes, Tenby can be very nice but again the weather too often spoils holidays in the U K.
I was stationed at Manorbier during my time in the forces, I was on Radar and we used to use the lighthouse on Caldy Isle as a co - ordination point. weekend ends was usually spent at Tenby and the south beach in particular and just west of there at Pennally there was a firing range for our camp.
The best beach in the world is where you have had the most fun on your holidays that's left you with wonderful and special memories.
Ours is Fontygary by Rhoose west of Barry as that's where my wife Sylvia and I met 61 years ago. Not much as beaches go but very special to us. and we always return there whenever we're in the U K. and love it every time.
Location is not all that important really.