We’re getting well into the swing of summer – and what better place to enjoy it than on the beach.
Especially as we’ve got plenty of beautiful beaches along the North Yorkshire coast, which is highlighted in a new guide to Britain’s best beaches has been published.
Researcher Chris Haslam has spent five weeks on the road, driving 4,307 miles and inspecting 607 beaches to compile the UK’s 50 Best Beaches in The Times – and three of them are in North Yorkshire.
Boggle Hole
Found south of Robin Hood’s Bay, this is an undiscovered gem for many. “There are just 38 parking spaces on Bridge Holm Lane, seriously limiting visitor numbers,” said The Times.
“From here it is a steep ten-minute walk down hill into the gorge of the Mill Beck, where you’ll see the second best thing: a former mill with a cafe and bar that might be the nation’s finest youth hostel.
“If you’ve checked your tides app before coming, the very best thing of all lies before you: a patchwork beach of flat sand draped between stacked slabs of fossil-rich shales with caves to explore and top rock-pooling.”
Whitby Sands
The seaside resort that has it all: award winning chippies, gleaming jet, a bustling harbour, vampires – and a lovely beach. “Whitby is horribly crowded in the summer but the one place you can find peace and quiet is the West Cliff beach, with suntrap sands that run all the way to Sandsend, two miles away,” explained The Times.
“If you stay the whole day you’ll be astonished to find yourself watching a sunset here. This is the east coast and the sun goes down in the west, right? All true, but the stretch from Whitby to Sandsend, as it does up the coast at Kettleness Point, faces north, which explains the perturbance.”
Marske Sands
The Times encourages beach lovers to go a bit further up the North Yorkshire coast to reach this underrated location. “If you push on for another 15 miles you’ll find a post-industrial seaside landscape largely untroubled by tourism.
“First is Saltburn-by-the-Sea: a posh Victorian resort with a pier and a water-powered cliff lift. Last is Redcar: a workers’ playground that became the steelworks capital of the world. In between, the pristine, four miles of Marske Sands: popular with lovers of the sunrise.”
Take a look at the full guide to the UK’s 50 Best Beaches here.
