Another accolade comes Filey’s way, as the beach has been listed in The Guardian’s 10 of Britain’s best wild beach walks. It comes hard on the heels of Hunmanby Gap being named in The Times top ten beaches in 2020.

Once again the wide open spaces are highlighted as being ideal in this post-Covid world. Although if we are being particularly picky, we might say that the beach is longer than the five miles stated, we’re claiming seven, but I suppose the tide can quickly change that.

The only other northern beach on the list is Druridge Bay in Northumberland. As a politician might say, your writer has to declare an interest, as I come from a Northumbrian family and spent many school holidays on the sands of Druridge Bay. In some ways it is very similar to Filey Bay, being a huge expanse of golden sand, but it is even less developed than our own beach as there is no town of any size adjacent to it.

It’s good to see that the campaign to highlight the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard is having some success, as The Guardian writer describes it as ‘the most famous wreck of them all’. The Beach Cafe at Hunmanby Gap gets another national mention (they got a nod in the Times as well), as does the RSPB bird sanctuary at Bempton.

All-in-all more great publicity for the area, although one would have thought that the Guardian would have mentioned the fact that the beach is easily accessible by train rather than just mention the A165 and ‘park on the seafront’. I’m not sure how much more traffic Filey can take to be honest.

Hunmanby Sands