The Sunday Times 26/7/2020
“50 Best British Beaches By Chris Haslam ”
“Over the last twelve years, the Sunday Times Beach guide has become the definitive gazetteer of the Great British coast. Every spring since 2008 I have hit the beaches from Sennen in Cornwall to Sannick in Scotland, checking key criteria from bathing water quality to lavatory provision, from car parking to wheelchair access. The 50 that make the list ….. radiate the seaside magic that every eight year old instinctively knows and understands. ”
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at number 4 on the list …
“Sandymouth, (Bude) Cornwall
The most powerful beaches radiate a magic that you can feel a mile away. Chapel Porth, Trevallas and Boat Cove are good examples in Cornwall, and Sandymouth is another. As you roll down the green lane, towards a wedge of blue ocean framed by the valley, the rising excitement is matched with fear that the National Trust car park will be full, but if you’re lucky – or early – you’ll soon be skipping past the cafe to the high-tide shingle bank and the waterfall. Below the high-water mark there is a rock-pool zone, and beyond that seemingly endless golden sands.” See full report here
The Evening Standard 10/8/2018
“6 of the best surfing spots in the UK By Rosie Fitzmaurice”
“The UK has abundant beautiful sandy beaches, yet each year many of us jet off to the Mediterranean for warmer – or at least more reliable – weather.
This year, however, there’s no need. We’ve been blessed with a decent summer, finally.
And while temperatures are not quite as high as they were a few weeks ago, “warmer than average temperatures” are expected to continue until October. Oh, and there’s a bank holiday just around the corner.
So if you’re considering taking a last minute long weekend in celebration of this record-breaking summer, why not try a spot of surfing?”
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at number 4 on the list …
“Summerleaze Beach, Bude, Cornwall
Another pretty, sandy beach, Summerleaze is just a few minutes’ walk from the centre of Bude, a seaside town in northern Cornwall. There’s a sea pool for swimming when the sea is rough and a row of colourful wooden beach huts available for rent.” See full report here
The Sunday Times 1/7/2018
“The best beaches in the UK”
Sandymouth is selected in this list, but Summerleaze and Northcott Mouth are also mentioned in passing. See the full report here
House Beautiful 18/1/2018
“Top 5 places to stay with the cleanest air”
At number 2
Bude
Bude’s reputation of being a brilliant seaside resort is backed up by its multiple awards, winning Gold, Silver and Bronze for the Best UK Coastal Resort for the past three years at the British Travel Awards. Breathe in the fresh air while you visit the gorgeous beaches, golf courses, and enjoy coarse fishing. Read full article here
The Daily Telegraph 30/6/2017
“How to survive a family holiday”
Under the “Coastal” section:
Bude Sea Pool
This semi-natural pool snuggled into the rocks at Summerleaze Beach provides the unique experience of being in the sea, close to the ferocity of the Atlantic Ocean, but sheltered its extreme effects. Measuring 91m by 45m, this oval-shaped pool is home to endurance trainers, triathletes and kayakers, beach hut enthusiasts, families and sunbathers. Built in the 1930s to provide a safe environment for swimming, entry is free and relies on generous donations and fundraising to keep it open.” see mare details of the pool here
The Sunday Times 18/6/2017
“The Best beaches in the UK” by Chris Haslam, chief Travel writer
“Last Year, Bude won best UK coastal resort at the British Travel awards for the second year running, and I’m tipping a hat -trick for 2017.This town is on the up and up, due partly to a properly switched on tourist office(visitbude.info), but mostly to the love the town pours onto Summerleaze Beach. Bordered by the River Neet to the south, a sea pool to the north, and an always crowded surf break to the west, Summerleaze on a summer’s day is like a free festival in Mother Nature’s water park.”
The Sunday Times 19/6/2017
“The Best beaches in the UK”
Sandymouth, Bude was gain selected, though Summerleaze and Northcott mouth also mentioned! Full report here
The Sunday Times 13/8/2016
“20 Britain’s Best Walks for this summer
at number 4 on the list…
Northcott Mouth, Cornwall
How hard is it? 6.5 miles, some ups and downs on a coast path
The cliff path heading from Northcott Mouth on the Cornwall coast is at its rockiest and wildest, and tremendously dramatic. Then from Duckpool you walk inland in the cool of the wooded Coombe Valley, finishing with a stride across high ground with more superb coastal Views.
Getting there: From A39 just north of Bude, follow Poughill signs; turn left in village via minor road to beach.”
The Sunday Times 10/7/2016
Winner in their 50 Best British Beaches of the “Town”
“Bude has undergone a remarkable transformation” and “Of the the two beaches, our choice is family-friendly Summerleaze, which has a wonderful sea pool, new beach huts (from £25 per day; visitbude.info) and restaurants ranging form Life’s a Beach (Crab bisque £6.50; lifesabeach.info) to the Beach, where Joe Simmonds’s sea bass gives Rick Stein a run for his money (mains from £8; thebeachatbude.co.uk)”
The Sunday Times 11/3/2015
30 best places to live by the sea…… # 26 Buderesorts category..
“This popular spot on the north Cornish Coast is famed for surfing, as well as its lovely sandy beaches, pastel-painted beach huts and clifftop walks. You won’t find a McDonald’s or a Jamie Oliver, but locals say that is exactly why they like it.”
The Guardian 23/3/2012
“Beach huts are hot property at England’s seaside, so book early. Surf the Atlantic rollers at Bude, Cornwall then dry off in a hut on the sandy shores of Summerleaze or Crooklets. These pastel huts come with deckchairs, hot showers and loos, but no electricity or drinking water. A children’s play area and cafe are close by. Huts cost £10-£20 daily.”
The Times 27/5/2011
Forget Newquay – the North Cornish town of Bude, its coastline battered by the Atlantic, is where the real surfers catch their waves.
Even Prince William hired boards for his top-secret Devon stag do at Zuma Jay, the town’s best surf shop, as did Kate Moss. Bude, nicknamed the ‘Bondi of Britain’, has the oldest lifesaving rescue team in the UK, set up in 1953.
Less than 30 miles up the coast from its posher sisters, Padstow and Rock, Bude has a down-to-earth charm, more flip-flops than deck shoes”
Sunday Telegraph Travel 10/8/09
Summerleaze beach is a beautiful sweep of fine sand, with fishing boats pulled up on the tideline, children playing with buckets and spades, and wet-suited surfers riding the rolling waves.”
Sunday Telegraph Travel 30/7/06
One of the wildest and most beautiful stretches of the north Cornish coast is between Bude and Boscastle.”
The Independent 27/7/04
Top Surf Spots in Britain:
at Number 7
“BUDE. Often overlooked, Bude has great surf spots, bars and restaurants, and has been a mecca for British surfers since the sixties.”
Trevalgas Cottages: Peace without Isolation
Bedfordshire Journal 20.04.05
While cheap flights from Luton or Stansted can get us to exotic destinations, the travelling can also be quite wearisome. There’s the hassle of getting to the airport, high parking costs, a lot of queuing and hanging around, the risk of delays, indifferent food, etc. And while the flights may be cheap, there’s no escaping the airport taxes and fuel surcharge, plus high costs of accommodation, particularly where a family is involved. The net result is that the benefit of a holiday or break has evaporated by the time you get back home.
One alternative to the overseas package holiday is a self-catering cottage – and it doesn’t have to be just swapping one kitchen sink for another. There is a small complex near Bude called Trevalgas Cottages, which has much to commend it, and being in North Cornwall, it’s much easier to get to than places further southwest – and it’s also handy for exploring the quieter parts of North Devon too. Here there is peace without isolation as the complex is about a mile and half from Bude town centre, glorious sandy beaches, rugged cliffs, the SW coastal path and superb countryside – yet many of the locals do not even know that the cottages are there – tucked in a quiet hollow in the rolling hills.
It’s an ideal place where one can switch off from the hectic pace of life – and recharge ones’ batteries. With plenty of space to relax, and enjoy the colourful well-tended gardens, there’s also a wonderful heated indoor pool so no need to worry if the sun doesn’t shine – and the cottages themselves provide home-from-home comforts, including a dishwasher in the larger units. And while they all have fully fitted and well-equipped kitchens, and barbecues, it doesn’t have to be cooking all the time as there are dozens of good value places to eat out.
Although you may be tempted to never leave this peaceful setting, the unspoilt countryside offers plenty of walks, including the coastal path, and Bude Marshes where there’s a chance to watch the wildlife in the nature reserve, or just unwind and enjoy the peaceful surroundings.
Bude has its own links golf course, and stables offering horse riding along miles of sandy beaches at low tide. If you are more adventurous, then drop into the town’s adventure centre and sign up for an afternoon’s climbing or abseiling course on the folded fault lined cliffs, or hire a full sized surf board, wet suit plus a couple of hours tuition.
Alternatively hire some bikes locally, with trailer bikes for children, and enjoy one of the cycle paths in the area – along the Tamar valley, for example, or on the old Bodmin to Padstow railway track.
Bude is close to many gardens open to the public, and is not far away from the Eden Project. Jonathan Ball (its Cornish architect) is already planning the ‘Great Atlantic Way’ a new visionary project to help the regeneration and preservation of north Cornwall and enhance the experience of visitors to thirty miles of coastline from Bude to Newquay.
You can bring your dog along if you need, and with all-inclusive pricing, beds made up for your arrival, and some bargains for under-occupancy to make even the larger cottages affordable for smaller groups, a short break will feel longer and more relaxing at Trevalgas.
If you’d like to find out more, then contact Katherine Copley on 01628 675620 or, to see the current offers, visit www.trevalgascottages.co.uk
Special Touches make Holiday cottages home”
Grimsby Telegraph 20.04.02
“Looking to get away for an off-season break? Then the delightful Cornish town of Bude and Trevalgas Farm Cottages could be the perfect combination for you.
Bude is a superb base from which to explore both Cornwall and Devon as it is close to the border and Trevalgas Cottages are a fresh option of accommodation.
These individual, self-contained cottages are a real ‘home from home’ and the hosts really seem to have thought of everything – carefully chosen games, books and video selections – they even provide blank tapes so you won’t miss your favourite programmes!
The Trevalgas site of 14 cottages has been built up since the mid-Eighties and is situated in Poughill, a village which nettles beautifully in rolling hills, just two miles from Bude.
Eight cottages are available to let and since November (2002) they have been owned by a cooperative of locals who are eager to make their enterprise work. This small group actively encourage feedback from holidaymakers in their quest to provide the perfect cottage holiday.
I stayed in Briar Patch, a cosy three-bedroomed cottage which sleeps six in a twin and two double rooms. It has a well-fitted kitchen, including fridge/freezer, split level cooker, microwave and dishwasher. Its electric storage heaters make it ideal for holidays or short breaks at any time of the year.
As well as the cottages, guests have use of a superb heated swimming pool, games pool and laundry facilities.
Each cottage has a garden or patio area, barbeque, car parking space and there’s even a children’s play area to amuse the kids.
If you can tear yourself away from the site, the little town of Bude – tucked away at the top of the county like a well-kept secret – is just waiting for you to explore. It has miles of fantastic blue flag beaches, wide open spaces for wonderful walks and cycling, plus a superb 18-hole course right in the centre of town.
If you wish to venture further afield, you can taste the Cornish tourist attractions of the famous Lottery-funded Eden Project or nearby Tintagel Castle – the legendary birthplace of King Arthur -or maybe visit the timeless costal village of Clovelly just a few miles down the coast in Devon.
The Cornish weather is idyllic for holidays from May to October, including those peak months of July and August, but the cottages are available all year round.
For more information on availability and prices. contact Sarah Banning on 01494 711 540 or surf onto the Trevalgas website at www.trevalgascottages.co.uk
You can contact them on info@Trevalgascottages.co.uk or for Briar Patch cottage specifically, briar@trevalgascottages.co.uk ”
Here’s what the press has said about Bude in more detail:
Sunday Telegraph 10.8.09
Bude: Tales from Cornwall’s wild side Bude’s modest exterior hides a bizarre history involving a dotty vicar and a famous inventor
“I had heard of Gurney stoves, and always assumed that harvest festivals were an ancient tradition, but until this week, I had no idea that both were invented by eccentric Cornishmen living on a remote stretch of the county’s wildest and most dramatic shore.
Here, narrow lanes with high stone walls are dotted with primroses in spring and foxgloves in summer and lead into steep wooded valleys and over rolling maritime grassland. The coast is rugged and treacherous, with spectacular rock formations – barrel-shaped folds of rock, diagonal strata, zigzag chevron patterns, stripy layers of pale sandstone and dark siltstone.
The Cornish side of my family has farmed on this coast for 200 years, and the non-Cornish side has been coming here on holiday since 1900, but I had no idea that harvest festivals were invented in the 19th century at Morwenstow church. Stephen Hawker arrived in 1834, Morwenstow’s first vicar for more than a century. He devoted his life to converting local smugglers, wreckers and looters into a congregation of lifesavers, who warned ships away from the rocks, gave drowned sailors Christian burials – and celebrated harvests.
Hawker was delightfully dotty, dressing in red coat, pink fez and yellow horse-blanket poncho, posing on rocks in mermaid costume, inviting his nine cats to church services (excommunicating them if they moused on a Sunday) and taking his pet pig for walks. He had two happy marriages, at 19 to his 40-year-old godmother, and then at 60 to a girl of 20.
From Morwenstow churchyard and Hawker’s turreted rectory, I strolled to the coast footpath. Far below me, Atlantic waves churned and crashed against the rocks. Farther out, swirls of glittering blue-green faded to a fuzzy horizon that my Cornish grandmother would say heralds fine weather.
Soon I reached the National Trust’s smallest property, Hawker’s Hut, perched on a cliff and built entirely of driftwood.
Here Hawker composed sermons, watched for shipwrecks and wrote romantic poems such as The Song of the Western Men, now adopted as the Cornish anthem.
The next day, the wind got up and the incoming tide looked perfect for surfing. I headed for Bude’s beautiful Summerleaze beach with my ancient plywood surfboard. Old fashioned as my board may look, it is streamlined compared with the coffin-like box on which my grandmother rode the waves before the First World War.
To warm up after my swim, I visited Bude Castle, built on Summerleaze sandhills by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney. Few have heard of this Cornish genius, a contemporary of Hawker (they both died in 1875). To prove that it was possible to build on shifting sand, he designed his castle on a specially invented concrete base, and it is still standing 178 years later.
Sir Goldsworthy was an extraordinary polymath – architect, agriculturalist, surgeon, scientist, pianist and inventor. His Bude limelight was so bright that one lamp, reflected through mirrors, illuminated his entire castle. Three Bude lights replaced 280 candles in the Houses of Parliament, lasting until electricity was installed 60 years later. Sir Goldsworthy’s system of flashing lighthouses is still in use and his Gurney stoves survive in several cathedrals to this day. Sir Goldsworthy, knighted in old age by Queen Victoria, invented blastpipes, steam engines, mine ventilation, fire extinguishers, musical instruments, heating, lighthouse signals, electric telegraph and limelight, but he veered between success and bankruptcy.
Next, I explored the Bude canal, which has been dredged and restored to make a lovely inland walk. Away from the wild coast, Bude’s hinterland is calm and peaceful. Sir Goldsworthy contributed to early designs for the canal, a revolutionary project to link the Bristol and English Channels via the River Tamar.
The canal never reached the Tamar’s navigable stretches, but was a superb feat of engineering. Today, the canal’s nature reserve contains Cornwall’s largest reed beds, home to otters, dormice, and a host of rare birds and plants.
While Hawker and Sir Goldsworthy were living their extraordinary lives, and my Cornish relations were farming, Bude turned from a fishing harbour and small port into a fashionable Victorian seaside resort. In 1847, Tennyson visited and was inspired to write his Cornish “Idylls of the King”.
Later, the Atlantic Coast Express railway brought my non-Cornish relations and other well-heeled visitors direct from London, and Bude’s attractions included a sea pool, art-deco cinema, three golf courses and a series of huge hotels. However, decline followed, the final blow the closure of the railway in 1966.
Bude today may have lost its classy clientele, but it is a friendly, low-key little town filled with the mouthwatering aroma of hot pasties. Summerleaze beach is a beautiful sweep of fine sand, with fishing boats pulled up on the tideline, children playing with buckets and spades, and wet-suited surfers riding the rolling waves.
Chapel Rock, on the harbour breakwater, is all that remains from the days when Bude was just a chapel on a rock, where a bede, or holy man, lit lamps to guide ships in from Cornwall’s most treacherous coast. But today the town is taking renewed pride in its unique cultural and natural heritage.
Sir Goldsworthy’s eccentric castle-built-on-sand has been restored, with an excellent museum and a restaurant where I had lunch. Over coffee, I read one of Hawker’s bloodthirsty ballads – Croon from Hennacliff – about shipwrecked bodies washing up at Bude. The next time I go to a harvest festival, or visit a warm cathedral, I shall remember these two inspired Cornishmen, and the beautiful landscape that was their home.”
