Sennen Cove

Sennen is the beach at the very end of the A30, about a mile north of Land's End, and the most westerly surf beach on the British mainland. It sits at the southern end of Whitesand Bay (not to be confused with Whitsand Bay near Plymouth), with a small harbour, the lifeboat station, cafés and galleries tucked under the Pedn-men-du headland. That headland shelters the cove itself from westerly gales, while the rest of the bay lies wide open to the Atlantic.

There's sand here at every state of the tide, but the beach changes a lot through the day. As the tide drops, a big expanse of pale sand appears and Sennen joins up with Gwynver to the north, giving roughly a mile of continuous beach. The sand is mostly crushed shell, particularly clam, rather than ground-down granite. Behind the bay, nearly 100 acres of dunes run between Pedn-men-du and Aire Point and are an important habitat for rare insects.

Sennen picks up swell when much of Cornwall is flat, so the postcard setting doesn't make every day a beginner's day. The waves are usually smallest at the southern end near the harbour and build as you move north. RNLI lifeguards patrol in season and move the flags as the tide changes to show where it's safest to swim, so check where they are each time you arrive rather than heading back to yesterday's spot.