About 10 mins walk – the nearest beach, Sandyhills, is only a short walk from Barend along a quiet road. Turn left from Barend Holiday Lodges and stay on that road to the ‘T’ junction at the end. Cross the road into the car park, then access the beach to the left of Sandyhills Bay Holiday Park.
It’s a large sandy beach, warmed by the Gulf Stream, popular for paddling and exploring rock pools. It’s great for walking at low tide. The tide can move very quickly so we recommend you check the tide times.
Whether you want a full day of sandcastles and swimming, or just a gentle stroll and some shell collecting, Sandyhills Bay is a great beach that doesn’t get too crowded even at high season.
If you want to drive down there’s a car park with plenty of spaces (£5 for the day). There are also a few car park spaces that are free to use for visiting the toilets or the small shop.
There’s a grassy area with benches that’s good for sitting and “de-sanding” when you come off the beach.
The beach itself is interesting with grass and trees growing right up to the edge of the sand. The soft sandy area is fairly small when the tide is in but it becomes a large bay when the tide goes out. There are lots of rocks to clamber over and you can go rock pooling if you catch the tide right. There’s a digital information board with daily low and high tide times next to the path to the beach. This operates during busy times and seasons, but it’s not always on, so try to remember to check the Sandyhills tide times yourself.
There are some lovely views of the hills across the bay, and if you’re up for a good walk you can hike along the coastal path to Rockcliffe beach.
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For more beaches to visit click on the beach tag.
Lovely beach but not sure I’ve ever seen so many empty shells. I’m not exaggerating when I say there must have been literally 100’s of 1000’s of them all over the place. No one seems to know why but even if it was a natural disaster or something the amount of sea creatures needed to leave so many shells behind wouldn’t have been able to survive anyway. I’d love to know how there could be so many empty shells in one place
Hi Richard, I’d never really thought about this, but your post got me doing some digging. This was possibly the most useful article I found: https://www.childhoodbynature.com/the-mystery-of-shells/ This and some other references suggest that the large numbers of shells on some beaches (Kippford beaches are made up almost entirely of cockle shells) are simply due to the prevailing currents washing them up over time. At Sandyhills there are also the ‘pools’ where they’re unlikely to ‘escape’ from.
“…a shell is the old home and protection of a creature. It has outgrown it (or it may have died). When a mollusk dies, the soft body disappears but its shell remains and eventually washes up on the shore. This is how seashells end up on the beach. Also, once a creature grows out of a shell, it will find another shell to live in and then eventually grow out of that one. Once they grow out of a shell they will leave it behind and if it’s not picked up by another creature it will wash up on the beach. And that is why you see so many on the beach.”
Just spent the day at Sandhills beach, lots of shells but awful muddy when tide is in or out and very slippy underfoot. Tide doesn’t stay in for long so not brill if kids like water as it’s difficult to walk the distance out to the sea, due to the mud. Lovely beach, clean toilets and little shop to buy a cuppa or ice creams from but not worth the visit if you’re a water baby as not enough to really play in when the tide is out.