Lynmouth Eastern Beach, Lynmouth, Exmoor National Park
Rock and coarse sand beach in a stunning setting
Lynmouth and Lynton are known as 'England's Little Switzerland'.* The River Lyn flows into the sea below steep and heavily wooded cliffs. The setting is stunning. The rock and coarse sand Lynmouth Eastern Beach lines the coastline running east of Lynmouth in the direction of Sillery Sands (Beach), The Foreland and Foreland Point.
Location of Lynmouth Eastern Beach
The West Lyn River and East Lyn River rise on Exmoor's high ground. They converge in the village Lynmouth before flowing into Lynmouth Bay and the Bristol Channel at Lyn Mouth. Lynmouth Western Beach is the section of rock and coarse sand beach west of Lyn Mouth. Lynmouth Eastern beach runs east of Lyn Mouth.
Lynmouth Eastern Beach extends east to Sillery Sands (Beach) below the stunning hogs-back cliff at Foreland Point. Please note that access to Sillery Sands (Beach) is now difficult. See below for more information.
We've positioned Lynmouth Eastern Beach on Google maps. Zoom in on the 'Satellite' setting to see its location.
Directions to, and parking at, Lynmouth Eastern Beach
Drive the A39 from the east or west to get to Lynmouth. There's plenty of parking in the centre of the village and behind its beaches. Wander down to the coastline.
Lynmouth Eastern Beach
At low tide, Lynmouth Eastern Beach is a big rock beach. As is the case with Lynmouth Western Beach, there's some coarse sand at the back of the beach as well.
A note on nearby Sillery Sands (Beach)
Look east of Lynmouth Eastern Beach towards The Foreland and Foreland Point and you'll see a pretty beach below high cliffs. This is Sillery Sands (Beach). Note that this is no longer accessible from the South West Coast Path.
Exmoor National Park Authority writes: 'Public footpath. Permanent closure. No access to Countisbury from Sillery Beach. The path from Sillery Sands to Countisbury Hill is totally impassable. The steps have been washed away by the sea and a large part of the path has slipped in a landslide. If you proceed along the beach eastwards from Lynmouth, please be aware of the tide as you can be cut off. There is no other exit from the beach, beyond the end of the promenade. You must retrace your steps, before the tide comes in.' (Source: Exmoor National Park Authority website)
Beaches near Lynmouth Eastern Beach
Beaches on the coastline east of Lynmouth Eastern Beach:
Sillery Sands (Beach)
Porlock Beach
Bossington Beach
Minehead Beach
Dunster Beach
Blue Anchor Beach
Watchet West Street Beach
Helwell Bay Beach
Doniford Beach
St Audrie's Bay Beach
East Quantoxhead Beach
Kilve Beach
Lilstock Beach
Beaches on the coastline west of Lynmouth Eastern Beach:
Lynmouth Western Beach
Wringcliff Bay Beach
Lee Abbey Bay Beach
Woody Bay Beach
Heddon's Mouth Beach
Wild Pear Beach
Combe Martin Beach
Combe Martin Newbury Beach
Broadsands Beach
Watermouth Cove (Beach)
Hele Beach
Ilfracombe Rapparee Cove (Beach)
Ilfracombe Wildersmouth Beach
Ilfracombe Tunnels Beaches
Lee Bay Beach
Sandy Cove (Beach)
North Devon Atlantic facing beaches:
Rockham Beach
Grunta Beach
Barricane Beach
Woolacombe Sand (Beach)
Putsborough Sand (Beach)
Croyde Sand (Beach)
Saunton Sands (Beach)
Northam Burrows Beach
Westward Ho! Beach
Instow Sands (Beach)
Things to do near Lynmouth Eastern Beach
Lynton and Lynmouth Railway
South West Coast Path
The Valley of Rocks
Watersmeet (National Trust)
Dunkery Beacon and Exmoor's high moor
Dunster Castle
West Somerset Railway
Villages and towns near Lynmouth Eastern Beach
Lynmouth
Lynton
Malmsmead and Oare
Martinhoe and Woody Bay
Simonsbath
Combe Martin
Porlock Weir
Porlock
Bossington
Allerford
Selworthy
* Little Switzerland and pretty villages
Robert Southey, Romantic poet and friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, wrote that 'from the hill [the hill south of Lynmouth above Lyn Cleave and the Two Moors Way] between the two is a prospect most magnificent; on either hand, the coombes and the river before the little village. The beautiful little village, which, I am assured by one who is familiar with Switzerland, resembles a Swiss village'. The name Little Switzerland has stuck and refers to the area around the pretty villages Lynton and Lynmouth.
Letter from Robert Southey to John May, August 1799 from 'The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey'
“Stowey, August, 1799.
“My dear Friend,
“. . . . . My walk to Ilfracombe led me through Lynmouth, the finest spot, except Cintra and the Arrabida, that I ever saw. Two rivers join at Lynmouth, You probably know the hill streams of Devonshire: each of these flows down a coombe, rolling down over huge stones like a long waterfall; immediately at their junction they enter the sea, and the rivers and the sea make but one sound of uproar. Of these coombes the one is richly wooded, the other runs between two high, bare, stony hills. From the hill between the two is a prospect most magnificent; on either hand, the coombes and the river before the little village. The beautiful little village, which, I am assured by one who is familiar with Switzerland, resembles a Swiss village,—this alone would constitute a view beautiful enough to repay the weariness of a long journey; but, to complete it, there is the blue and boundless sea, for the faint and feeble line of the Welsh coast is only to be seen on the right hand if the day be perfectly clear.
Ascending from Lynmouth up a road of serpentining perpendicularity, you reach a lane which by a slight descent leads to the Valley of Stones, a spot which, as one of the greatest wonders indeed in the West of England, would attract many visitors if the roads were passable by carriages. Imagine a narrow vale between two ridges of hills somewhat steep: the southern hill turfed; the vale which runs from east to west, covered with huge stones and fragments of stones among the fern that fills it; the northern ridge completely bare, excoriated of all turf and all soil, the very bones and skeleton of the earth; rock reclining upon rock, stone piled upon stone, a huge and terrific mass. A palace of the Preadamite kings, a city of the Anakim, must have appeared so shapeless, and yet so like the ruins of what had been shaped after the waters of the flood subsided. I ascended with some toil the highest point; two large stones inclining on each other formed a rude portal on the summit: here I sat down; a little level platform, about two yards long, lay before me, and then the eye immediately fell upon the sea, far, very far below. I never felt the sublimity of solitude before. . . . .
“Of Beddoes you seem to entertain an erroneous opinion. Beddoes is an experimentalist in cases where the ordinary remedies are notoriously, and fatally, inefficacious: if you will read his late book on consumption, you will see his opinion upon this subject; and the book is calculated to interest unscientific readers, and to be of use to them. The faculty dislike Beddoes, because he is more able, and more successful, and more celebrated, than themselves, and because he labours to reconcile the art of healing with common sense, instead of all the parade of mystery with which it is usually enveloped. Beddoes is a candid man, trusting more to facts than reasonings: I understand him when he talks to me, and, in case of illness, should rather trust myself to his experiments than be killed off secundem artem, and in the ordinary course of practice. . . . .
“God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
R. Southey.”
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