Where are the prettiest/best beaches in Devon?

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Sorry, am clueless. I was all set to book a week in the best self-catering cottage I've ever seen, near Beaminster, Dorset - we've been there twice before. But it's no longer available as the owners are selling up.

Can't find anywhere nearly as special in Dorset that isn't hugely expensive, isn't suitable for a 3 yr old or hasn't already been booked up. So I'm looking further afield in Devon, but I don't know where to look. We're looking in last week of June, and don't want anywhere too busy, if that's even possible. Tell me about your favourite Devon beaches!

I didn't used to be called SOH. I was on one of those 'nobody recognises me, whinge moan bitch moan' threads and thought feck it, I'm namechanging and starting again. And so I picked the first thing I thought of and that was my favourite band. And then it sort of stuck and it's a rubbish name really. I'm too scared to change, though I do have lots of SOH related names (LymeBayToEbay for example ) saved for a rainy day. Most people think it's some sort of poll-related name.

Steve Knightley used to be a teacher once upon a time iirc so is very comfortable getting pissed amongst them I'd imagine. I feel very wrong having a crush on him but when he's stroking his instrument, I just come over all unnecessary. I can't speak in their presence. DH has to get them to sign my CDs. And my uke. Phil Beer even tuned it. I stood there, mouth open and shaking. Pathetic.

I hope Langleigh Farmhouse is a private residence. It's beautiful. When my brother last went about 4 years ago, it was definitely being used for something else.

The museum is brilliant. Pickled 2 headed animals and drawer upon drawer of moths.

I hope you have a wonderful time. Exmoor Zoo and the Dinosaur Park in Combe Martin are great fun as well.

I haven't been to that museum for yonks, will definitely go again when I go to devon in the summer. I remember my best mate tried to pinch the south american shrunken head from there I told him to do it , and was caught by the teacher, and was frogmarched back

Steve Knightley is far too cool, I think. I always used to autowitter complete nonsense in his presence

The north devon beaches are beautiful but have one problem. When the tide goes out it it goes out a very long way.

But when the tide goes out, you go rockpooling!

The only problem with the Dinosaur Park is that we have one here and it's brilliant. Friends went to the Combe Martin one and said it's not comparable. Might go to Exmoor Zoo. I've never been to a zoo before.

Wittering's better than furious blushing you know.

The Milky Way and the Big Sheep are both brilliant and our kids love both. Exmoor Zoo is okay but is a little bit small although I did hold a tarantula when we visited it!

Well, it is a zoo in a very north devon type of way. Birds, pigs, lemurs etc.

Don't expect lions and tigers

I adore rockpooling. SOW have you been to Rapparee beach in Ilfracombe? It is down some steps on Hillsborough. A lovely beach for rockpooling, and at low tide you can clamber over rocks to the next beach along the headland called Broadycove, you can only stay there for an hour max before the tide comes in. But it is a truly deserted beach which nobody goes to (apart from the local kids) and has a really deserted, Kirrin island feel to it, and brilliant caves to explore.

Mind you, you have to know the tides, I knew them when I was a kid and still chanced it, left it too late and ended up having to swim over to Ilfracombe pier because I was stranded.

Did you go to Ilf when the lifeboat was on the pier, and when it was launched it trundled down the quay and down the harbour, and if there were cars in the way the lifeboat strongmen would lift them out the way? That was such an event when I was a kid

I am very, very easily impressed with animatronic dinosaurs. I remember being genuinely scared (why?) of the T rex in the Natural History museum

The combe martin park has a fascinating pack of wolves as well, and the bloke who runs the colony has some programme called wolfman or something on telly.

There were cheetahs there when we went to Exmoor Zoo!
South Devon has some great beaches as well.
(bought up in Devon and wished I still lived there.)

Cheetahs really

When I last went (admittedly about 6 years ago) the one thing that DD remembers was a huge, great, fat pig called Nigel.

We went about 3 years ago so they're getting with the times (finally).
My OH comes from up north and the laid backness drove him mad when he first moved to the south west.

Goodness, Rapparee Cove, yes yes yes. And Kirrin Island, yes, exactly like that. All ginger beer by the lashing and what larks. We used to go down there rockpooling and one year some children got stuck trying to get to Broady when the tide came in. A helicopter came out and everything.

Yes, they did used to trundle the lifeboat round the quay and lift cars out the way. We were agog. Stood, motionless, chips halfway to mouth.

oh GOD I want to go home now.

As a child I used to live about 4 minutes walk from the harbour, when we heard the lifeboat flares (one for practice, two for someone in trouble, three for a wreck, and I have never heard three, thank god) we used to run down the hill to watch, like the urchins we were.

It never seemed to be anything serious in the summer, just yachting issues mainly. In the winter though it was ususally fisherboats, there were usually a couple of deaths a year, and there was still a pretty close knit fishing community back then.

Local people who lived near the harbour were called Quayites. We used to think we were superior to the people who lived in the 'town' bit of Ilfracombe. God it was so parochial

Sounds lovely and almost because it's parochial.

A young boy died one year when we went. He'd gone out in a dinghy and got into trouble. His friend survived. Ilfracombe was silent. Just chilling.

We also watched some children get stuck on rocks at Lee Bay one year and they had to retrieve them with a helicopter. All the locals came out with blankets and tea for the parents. Lovely. I just love the place.

Do you know where it is that I remember where there was a story of sombody being murdered and put in a Lime Kilm. Fairly local. The kiln is down on a beach, quite a walk down a hill and some steps. Any idea?

I'm an east devon girl but we used to have day trips and holidays all over devon. I feel homesick!!!!!!
(sorry for thread hijack)

I think I know which boy you meant - it was late 80s, early 90s. he was only about 8. You are right it was utterly chilling, we knew the coxwain of the lifeboat and he was a pretty hardened no nonsense chap, and he cried at that . The whole place was horrified.

It was the same when the fishermen died - my gran worked in the local fishermen's cafe and it was awful when tragedies like that happened.

I am only 33 but looking back my childhood seemed like another world.

I don't know anything about the murder and the lime kiln - there are loads of lime kilns in the area (a large one at Larkstone beach, one down the headland in the other direction to Rapparee) but I don't know anything about a corpse being put in one.

The very very sad thing about Ilfracombe when you live there is the poverty. As much as it is a beautiful place it is not the best place for teens. DD is 15 and a shocking amount of kids her age who she went to infant school with are into pot, mephadrone and coke. There is a horrific drug culture there, combined with lack of jobs. It is very hard.

Disco I am also very homesick tbh. I don't think I will ever live there again, but it is still home.

When I go back for visits it is very bittersweet. I see all the local faces I know, but feel a million miles away.

But when I go down the hill into Ilfracombe, especially if the sun is shining, I feel a real heartfelt pang.

I moved away from east devon over 15 years ago due to work commitments. Because we have 5 children it's easier for family to visit us rather than us visit them. On the odd occasion we have been back I don't recognize the town I grew up in!
(I must go back more!)

Exactly why I moved away - work. I have a pretty specialised job and there is nowhere I can work in the whole of Devon, really, let alone the north.

Every time I go back it has changed some more, but some things don't change, the scenery for one. I live on the edge of the Cotswolds now. People here think the Cotswolds are pretty and inwardly I think bollocks. Yes it is very nice but does not compare to the coastal scenery, or the sea, or Exmoor.

That must have been it. He was only a very young boy and the whole town just fell silent and everybody disappeared. The fishermen were lined up on the quay looking white. We went back to our campsite (it was called either Little Meadow or Big Meadow, I forget) and my Mum shook and shook.

I think Ilfracombe is like any other place that relies upon tourism for its trade. In the down time and when you're having to live there and make a life for yourself outside of icecreams and buckets and spades, a malaise sets in. You're just not catered for. I live in North Norfolk and find the faded seaside towns upsetting in winter. And there are a lot of problems with teens falling into boredom and misadventure. I think with North Devon it feels doubly chilling sometimes if you venture away from the sea fronts and postcard scenes because it has a rich history. Sad tales of wrecking and smugglers and this magnificent coastline and then it's tinged with this creeping, modern ennui. I used to think if they turned off the noise of the amusements and hid all the buckets and spades, you'd see ghosts.

The lime kiln was on a really small beach and as you looked at the sea there were high rocks on both sides and the kiln was on the left I think. You had to walk down a steep hill to get there. The tale was told to us in the local inn. Big white building that was very, very old and had lots of beams. I'm aware that I'm vague. I'm 30 and we went there in the 80s and early 90s so it's all from childhood memories. Oh I remember a child standing on a lesser weever at the tunnels and my parents warning us that it was because she hadn't kept her jelly shoes on when rockpooling. Of course my brother and I took this as a cue to go and try and catch one of the bloody things.

RustyBear - Soar Mill Cove is a gem, I agree. I love the walk through the National Trust land full of gorse to get there. Even now, it's the Happy Place I go to in my head when things get a bit much :)

I live in Ilfracombe! It's fantasic ~ there are loads of gorgeous beaches nearby, as have been mentioned. My favourites are Tunnels and Woolacombe's Barricane and Combesgate.

Before we moved here we booked a couple of self catering holidays through Marsdens, who have some lovely cottages.

Love this thread!

(If that's not inappropriate, in the light of small boy being drowned. )

Loads to think about, so thanks. Will get going on finding somewhere now.

SOH, Steve Knightley sort of boggled at my stomach (I get pregnant really hugely) and sort of pretended to stagger and said 'Oh my GOD! When?', because it really did look like I was about to burst. I giggled (impossible not to, frankly - another one with a SK crush here!) and said I was doing my best not to go into labour that evening, but it was due in about three weeks. And Phil was lovely but can't remember what he said. And I said I liked Miranda's bracelet, which was true. I'm not great at talking to people when I have cds signed, either.

wet suit a good idea - sun protection and keeps youngsters happy on beach for longer - v cheap these days....

5 things why I vote for BIGBURY on Sea....

1. Gorgrous Beach
2. Very, Very, Very fmaily friendly
3. Surfing - also surf school
4. Pub (THe Pilchard Inn) on beach
5. Tractor Ride back once tide comes in

....oh and there's the fab Deli on the top near the car park that does fab take away food from ie not just your burgers but fab salad boxes and panninis

.... and the fab walk right past the Burgh Island Hotel to the top of the cliffs where you can see the seagulls nesting and the view of the beach

.... oh and the lovely village of Modbury doen the road withthe fab restaurants, pubs, deli and butchers

Were going this summer again...I could go on and on!!!!!