Sand, shallow water, quiet, no tacky seaside crap.

What’s down there?

Exmouth ticks those boxes and is the closest.

Big as well so doesn’t get too crowded even when busy.

And sandy – a lot are pebble on the east of Exeter.

I’d suggest Dawlish warren for partially meeting those requirements.

Or Dawlish Warren – tacky as hell when you arrive but walk further down and it gets quieter and quieter. You can get a train to both Exmouth and Dawlish Warren from Exeter.

**EDIT** Too slow

We were at Porthcawl last weekend though.. can’t be tackier than that 🙂

Another vote for Dawlish Warren. Turn left at the sea wall and keep on walking until the number of lobster pink chavs thins out to acceptable levels. About 100m will do it.

The big question is how young are your kids*?

If you walk to quiet end of Dawlish Warren you are a fair way from the loos! 😀

(*presuming you have kids due to request for sandy and shallow.)

Lyme Regis is nice, but a reasonable drive away from Exeter.

Sidmouth (Jacob’s Ladder)
Ladram Bay and Budleigh are lovely (both are an excuse to visit Otterton) but more pebble than sand

Sidmouth is a good call. Either Jacob’s Ladder or just round the headland to the left.

Bude is probably as quick to get to as exmouth/sidmouth and a whole lot nicer

Bude is probably as quick to get to as exmouth/sidmouth

Errr – OK!

Perhaps if you have access to a helicopter.

Or Dawlish Warren – tacky as hell when you arrive but walk further down and it gets quieter and quieter. You can get a train to both Exmouth and Dawlish Warren from Exeter.

+1. I couldn’t believe how short a distance you needed to walk to get away from the crowds. There’s also a boat crossing across the estuary from Starcross to Exmouth (or there was, anyway).

Beer is beautiful – but water drops off quick and pebbles rather than sand but as I say beautiful area. Bude ain’t near Exeter

It’s only 45mins further than dawlish warren.

Wales is nice.

If you’re looking a bit further afield, Blackpool and Slapton Sands are beauts. Not been for years though so might have a high pink lobster quotient these day.

all depends on which side of Exeter you are. If I was was on the west side I’d be heading to the north coast.

End of Dawlish Warren is fine – just walk a little way towards the mouth of the Exe. And there is something to entertain the kids.

This from a Teignmothian is hard to write 😉

No where near but we’re just back from Lunan bay. The beach is great the diner was pretty damn good. The dogs are knackered.

Lunan bay

Have you been to St Cyrus yet? Steptoes yard is worth a visit, just for the sheer WTF element!

No help to the OP, just as well start recommending beaches in France. 😛

Slapton Sands is very long, and mostly empty of people in general, and crimson hordes in particular, the Torcross end has fairly large pebbles, but the longshore drift from the Start Point end of the bay has given Beesands a very steeply sloping beach at the far end, with large shingle, getting flatter and finer going towards the Torcross end, and the same at Slapton, coarser at Torcross, getting finer as you go towards Blackpool Sands and Dartmouth.
You can get around the point from Torcross to Beesands at very low tide, if you’re fast and careful, the margin for time is small, or there’s a path around, allowing access to the Cricket Inn, and it’s wonderful food and good beer!

Branscombe is quite nice
Edit- pebbly though

Dawlsh Warren is nice away from the carpark, with the added bonus of a nature reserve based around an old clay pit for tons of dragonfly action.
Exmouth’s also a great shout.. If you want to get away from the hordes of grockles drive to the eastern end of the beach at low tide and walk around orcombe point to Rodney bay for a good mile of quiet sandy beach with rock outcrops and tons of rockpools with shallow shelf in between ideal for skimboarding… also accesible at other tides via the cliff path.. Its gurt lush at present due to very low tides so miles of sandbar and spit are accesible.. It’s a world heritage site for the fascinating geology

Beaches further east are all pebble for many many miles of coastline

Jam-bo is right about north Devon but the journey time is at least 1.5 hours as opposed to 20 minutes for the south coast

Give me a shout before 11am if you decide to head to Exmouth and want to arrange to meet up

We go to Devoncliffs. It is a couple of miles East of Exmouth. It is a caravan park but you use it if you aren’t staying there. They only charge for parking. It is quiet if you walk down a bit.

i wondered how long it would take someone to suggest slapton in a thread on beaches near exeter. closer than bude i suppose, but not by much! 😆

Time or distance? It’s all relative down here..

You lot sound like a bunch of stuck up and judgemental snobs.Ungrateful snobs at that.

crikey. someone needs a cuddle. 😯

Give me a shout before 11am if you decide to head to Exmouth and want to arrange to meet up

Very kind of you Yunki. My original plan was to head down with the caravan for the Easter weekend and collect Juangia’s frame; I’d definitely have taken you up and made you take me riding. However now we are just going to come for the day so may not have time.

Also may not be beach weather tomorrow!

Exmouth’s the only real option. Sidmouth, Budleigh etc are pebbles. Even Jacob’s Ladder isn’t great and the smashing waves on the steep drop-off aren’t good for anyone who likes breathing air.

There’s still a ferry from Exmouth to Dawlish (or is it Starcross?). Dawlish Warren is lovely but Dawlish is one of the tackiest places I’ve have the misfortune to visit.

Beer and those East-places etc are a good drive from Exeter and there’s nothing you can’t find closer to Exmouth – there was a great trials scene in the 90s with Matt and Eddie Tongue frequently coming to play.

If you make it to Exmouth, Krispies (for good reason) have been voted one of the best places for fish and chips in the country.

(old Lympstonian)

Been to Burleigh today, place was dead given its a bank holiday and weather was ok.weird, where are all the grockles?

Sidmouth is good at mid to low tide – rock-pools, sand and padding for the kids. My parents live down that way and my two girls have spent no end of time bumbling around there, happy as anything. You do have to hop down over pebbles to get to the sand though.

The grockles prefer Spain.Less patronising locals around.

LOLZ

monkeycmonkeydo – Member
You lot sound like a bunch of stuck up and judgemental snobs.Ungrateful snobs at that.

OP wants a beach that’s quiet, that hasn’t turned into one massive, crowded, sea of sunburnt humanity with one shop after another selling cheap tat, which many seaside places have become.
This is fact, it’s also a fact in many holiday destinations all over the world, and many millions of people are perfectly happy to go to such places every year, which is fine.
Many other people have no wish to be cheek-by-jowel with thousands of other sweaty humans like a massive pink seal colony, and desire somewhere quiet where they can relax in peace and quiet.
I count myself among them, and am perfectly grateful for the fact that there are many places where peace and quiet can be found.
Do you have any objections to that?

monkeycmonkeydo – Member
The grockles prefer Spain.Less patronising locals around.

Yeah, well, I live around 140 miles from South Hams, so you can count me out as a patronising local then.
😛

I was down at Seatown, Bridport today, and that might be worth considering, it’s possible to find fossils there, although it’s a shingle beach, it’s not the really large shingle, and it gets finer further down the beach, and there’s a great pub just the other side of the (dead-end) road from the car park.
Give the kids some hammers and they can spend hours happily smashing rocks to bits looking for stuff.
The best fossils are to be found in grey soft mudstone that’s just underneath the shingle and shows at low tide, it has large numbers of belemnites in, and ammonites as well, in fact the stone is quite soft and an old bluntish knife is handy for prising them out.