Woolacombe facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Woolacombe |
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 Woolacombe beach and village |
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 Woolacombe
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| Population | 697 |
| OS grid reference | SS457438 |
| District |
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| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | WOOLACOMBE |
| Postcode district | EX34 |
| Dialling code | 01271 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Devon and Somerset |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament |
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Woolacombe is a fun seaside resort located on the coast of North Devon, England. It's nestled at the mouth of a valley, which is called a "combe." The village is part of the Mortehoe parish. Woolacombe's beach is super long, stretching for about 2 miles (3.2 km). It has soft sand, slopes gently, and faces the Atlantic Ocean, near the edge of the Bristol Channel.
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Fun for Visitors: Tourism in Woolacombe
Woolacombe is a very popular spot for surfing and family holidays. It's part of the beautiful North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Since the 1970s, a company called Parkin Estates Ltd has looked after the beach. Over the years, it has been named one of the best beaches in Europe!
It won "Britain's Best Beach" in the "Coast Magazine Awards 2012." Then, in 2015, TripAdvisor also called it Britain's Best Beach. In the same polls, it ranked as the 4th best beach in Europe and the 13th best in the whole world. The Environment Agency regularly checks the water quality at the beach, and it was rated excellent from 2016 to 2020.
Woolacombe's Holiday Buzz
About 700 people live in Woolacombe during the winter. But in the summer, lots of people come to the village for their holidays. Many visitors come to enjoy the surfing. You can find many places to stay, like hotels, holiday flats, holiday parks, campsites, and bed and breakfasts. Most of the fun activities in Woolacombe are made for tourists.
The village has a local pharmacy and a small doctor's office. There's also a crazy golf course in the middle of the village. It used to have holes shaped like famous places in North Devon, built from local stones. In 2010, it was rebuilt with a cool pirate theme!
The South West Coast Path goes right through the village. This path lets you explore the North Devon coast, including a walk out to Morte Point. If you like horses, several places nearby offer pony trekking. You can even ride horses along Woolacombe Sands!
Awards and Recognition
Woolacombe beach has won many awards for being a great place to visit:
- Family Resort of the Year – Gold Award (England for Excellence – 1999): This award said it was "A beach that is everyone's ideal - golden and sandy - perfect for a traditional bucket and spade holiday."
- Best Beach (2nd place) (The Observer – 2000)
- ENCAMS Seaside Award (2003)
- Tidy Britain Seaside Award (2005)
- Blue Flag beach (2005, 2006, 2007, and other years)
- Coast Magazine Awards 2012 - Winner - Britain's Best Beach
- TripAdvisor Best British beach 2015
- TripAdvisor 4th Best Beach in Europe 2015
Nature and Landscape: Geology and Wildlife
Woolacombe is located within the North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This area is famous for its amazing coastal cliffs and beautiful scenery. Because of the Atlantic Ocean waves, the swell (size of the waves) is often big. This makes Woolacombe a fantastic spot for surfing.
The beach has sloping sand dunes next to it, which are fun to climb. You can see how nature slowly changes these dunes. Plants like marram grass and sea spurge are growing on top of the dunes.
From the beach, you can see Lundy Island in the distance. Woolacombe also has small cliffs at each end of the beach. These cliffs are home to rare maritime heathland, which is a special type of plant area. Much of the land near the village is owned and looked after by the National Trust. The coast itself is part of the North Devon Voluntary Marine Conservation Area. This is because it has many different and rare kinds of sea creatures and plants.
Woolacombe's Past: History
Like some other beaches in Britain, Woolacombe beach is privately owned. Until 1948, the Chichester family owned the beach and a lot of the land around it. They had owned it since 1133, during the time of King Henry I. When Lady Rosalie Chichester, the last person in her family line, passed away in 1949, the land had been in her family for over 800 years!
Lady Rosalie had planned to give the Chichester family's land in Woolacombe, Mortehoe, and their estate at Arlington to the National Trust. However, the beach and some land around it had already been bought by Stanley Parkin. Later, Ray Parkin became the head of Parkin Estates in 1995.
World War II Training
During the Second World War, the U.S. Army had an Assault Training Centre right here in Woolacombe. Thousands of soldiers and small boat crews practiced landing on the beach. They were getting ready for the Invasion of Normandy, which was part of Operation Overlord. The long, flat shape of Woolacombe beach and the land behind it were very similar to Omaha Beach in France, where a big landing happened.
There is a stone memorial dedicated to these soldiers. It was put up in 1992 and can be found on the grassy headland at the northern end of the beach.
Getting Around: Transport
A bus service connects Woolacombe to nearby towns like Barnstaple, Ilfracombe, Combe Martin, and Mortehoe. Woolacombe used to have a train station that it shared with Mortehoe. This station was on the Ilfracombe Branch Line but closed in 1970.
Places of Worship: Religion
Woolacombe has several places where people can worship, all of them Christian. The Anglican Church of St Sabinus is on the main road leading into the village. It was designed by the architect W. D. Caröe and opened in 1912. The church was built to welcome the many tourists who started visiting the village after the local train station opened in 1874. It is named after St Sabinus, an Italian bishop who became a saint.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, a group called Counties Evangelistic Work held "beach missions" on Woolacombe sands every summer. These were led by an evangelist named Dennis Pierce.
A branch of the California-based Calvary Chapel started in Woolacombe in 2001. They first met in the village hall, but now they meet in the old Methodist Church on Beach Lane. In 2002, this chapel organized the first Creation Fest. This was a free Christian music festival held every year just outside the village until 2008, when it moved to Cornwall.
See also
In Spanish: Woolacombe para niños
