This is a fabulous, 7-mile long stretch of dune-backed beach running from Burnham-on-Sea in the south to Brean Down, in the north, located on the North Somerset coast. I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the sand dunes here, but I also had my first(and last) driving lesson from my Dad on the beach — part of it is accessible to vehicles and you can park on the sand. As well as traditional beach activities like building sand castles, it’s a favourite area for training racing horses, paragliding and sand yachting. At one end — close to the mediaeval church at Berrow — is the remains of the wreck of the Norwegian barque SS Nornen, which was blown onto the sand banks during a storm in 1897. The crew of ten and the chip’s dog were rescued by the Burnham lifeboat during a heroic rescue. Like the rest of this coast, the tremendous tidal range of the Bristol Channel(the second highest in the world after the Bay of Fundy in Canada) means that the sea disappears over a mile out at low Spring tides, exposing extensive mud flats. These provide rich pickings for birdlife, but can be a death trap for the unwary, as the tide comes in at walking pace. Recent years have seen some dramatic rescues of people, vehicles and animals stuck(literally) in the mud as the waters rise around them. Following the death in 2002 of a five-year-old girl from Worcester called Lelaina Hall, a campaign was started to fund an inshore hovercraft, to help deal with such situations. It has been named Spirit of Lelaina in her honour. The advice is to stick to the firm sand close to shore — it’s also rather nicer than the mud(which, ironically, is worse at he Burnham end). There are lots of caravan sites along this stretch of coast, and a few shops and a pub, although that’s about the limit of facilities here. Nearby Brean Down — a large limestone promontory with fabulous views over the Bristol Channel — is a National Trust nature reserve, is notable for archaeology dating back 4,000 years, and has a well-preserved late 19th Century ‘Palmerston Fort’ at one end. Brean village — more a hamlet really — has a small 13th century church, unusually dedicated to St Bridget. Overall, it’s a great place to walk and to blow away the cobwebs.
