This walk along the East Devon coast path from Beer to Branscombe and back is quite easy to follow as there are very clear signposts and paths leading you in the right direction so I won’t go into too much detail with this walk. We love this stretch of the South West Coast Path because Beer and Branscombe are two of our favourite beaches to visit. Both are small villages, with fishing boats moored on the pebble beaches. I’ve written a post before about Branscombe (here) and I’ll do another post in the near future about Beer as it deserves its own post; it’s such a lovely little Village to stroll round, visiting the independent shops and sitting in one of the deck chairs having an ice cream or chips on the beach, watching the fishing boats go out to sea.
Views of Beer’s white cliffs.
We started this walk by parking in the main car park (Clapp’s Lane) in Beer as we first went down to the beach to have some lunch, but we resisted the urge to get an ice cream, instead promising ourselves we would have one once we reached Branscombe. If you aren’t planning on visiting the village or if there’s no space in the main car park, then there’s a larger one right by the start of the coast path called Cliff Top car park. To reach the coast path from Beer Beach, we walked past our favourite pub in the village, ‘The Anchor Inn’ and walked up Common Lane. From here we had beautiful views of Beer Beach, its white cliffs and the coastline over the well kept gardens, belonging to the beautiful terraced houses on the other side of this road. Once half way up this hill we then turned down a lane on our left called Little Lane. From here it leads us past the bigger car park I mentioned earlier, and a caravan park on our right. Going through a gate, and into a field, this lane joins onto the coast path.
For those of you who enjoy geocaching, there are some great ones along this route all the way to Branscombe. We actually ended up finding some of the ones we couldn’t find last time we walked this route, though it can be hard sometimes as this path can get fairly popular, so you need to have a lot of stealth!
Views of Beer and Seaton from the coast path.
As we carried on along the coast path the views just kept getting better, we did this walk on a hot and sunny day, but a word of warning, be prepared that there’s a steep hill on the way back from Branscombe, which can be made a lot more strenuous in the heat, there’s also a section of rather steep steps if you descend the cliff path, but the rest of the walk is rather easy going and the views make it even more enjoyable. On the way to Branscombe we took the lower path (called Hooken undercliff) when we were given a choice of two options, and on the way back we took the high path along East Cliff.
A lovely spot to sit and take in the views.
Views of Branscombe beach from the coast path.
The lower path takes you through twists and turns with the white cliffs on your right, and there’s a short cut to the Eastern side of the beach when you reach the end of this path. However, there are quite a few steps on this path, whereas if you choose the high path it’s just through several fields then down one set of steps and then down East Cliff hill. One thing to add, at the moment the path will be getting more and more popular as its peak holiday season, the lower path also gets quite narrow in places, meaning it will be difficult to socially distance from others at times.
Some of the steps you’ll encounter along Hooken Undercliff.
Both paths offer the beautiful views of the coastline and are clearly marked on how to get to the beach. Once we reached the end of the lower path, we could have walked further which would take us out to the bottom of the hill before the car park at Branscombe, instead we chose to enter the beach by a path on our left. This took us to the Eastern end of the beach.
The Eastern end of Branscombe beach.
This part of the pebble beach is a lot quieter than the main stretch close to the car park. We decided to sit here for a bit and watch a few dogs enjoying the water as the waves crashed against the pebbles. After a while, we decided to walk towards ‘The Sea Shanty beach cafe’ by the car park and the entrance to the beach, it’s a short walk along the beach to get here. This is the only cafe by the beach, but it has a good variety of food and drink options, including a good choice of ice creams which is what we came for!
The Eastern end of Branscombe beach is always a lot more quiet.
We sat and watched the waves crashing against the pebbles.
The busier part of the beach, with The Sea Shanty Beach cafe to the right.
After having a great ice cream and relaxing in the sun, we decided we had better start climbing the hill back onto the coast path, to return to Beer. From the Sea Shanty cafe, there’s an entrance to the hill ahead through a gate by the mouth of the river that’s just to the side of the car park. Look for the massive hill, it is hard to miss!
We sat and had an ice cream, while looking at the hill we were about to climb.
The hill does have some benches you can rest on if need be, we sat and looked at the views of the beach below before continuing on our walk, up some steps then through more fields which eventually took us back to Beer. Along the way we saw the remains of an old lookout building as we walked past a flock of sheep and down a path that took us through some gates and back to the fields we first started walking in.
The views of Branscombe village, beach and coastline from the top of the hill.
This walk took us about 3 hours to do, but we did it at a leisurely pace and stopped to do some geocaching. It’s best to give yourself plenty of time, as I’ve said before the hill and steps can be quite strenuous! The stunning coastal views really do make up for the hard work involved on some parts of this coast path though. Both beaches are dog friendly, Beer does have restrictions in place for certain areas (clearly marked) during peak season, but the whole of Branscombe beach is dog friendly all year round. If you are taking a dog on this walk, please bear in mind that there are steep drops from the cliff side so be very careful dogs don’t run off the edge, and as always, keep dogs under strict control around any livestock you may encounter (we walked through fields with sheep and cattle in them).
Views of Seaton from the coast path on the way back to Beer.