Hi:

We will be staying in the Cotswolds in mid April. We have rented a holiday cottage for the week, but would like to see the coast. What areas do you suggest that are a day trip from Broadway? We are interested in the scenery (rugged cliffs, etc.) for photography, versus flat sandy beaches. Not sure if we should head into southern Wales or to southern Great Britian. We have looked at the maps but are assuming the drive times are much longer than they appear. We would be spending the entire day.

Thanks!

The North Devon coast is beautiful with cliff drives heading west toward Lynmouth. Lynmouth from Broadway would be about three hours--the scenery gets really spectacular before you reach Lynmouth. If you get that far, the Rising Sun in Lynmouth would be my choice for lunch.

I would recommend the Jurassic coast (Dorset/Devon). It's approx 100 miles from Broadway, but allow for just over a 2 hour drive.

Golden Cap near Bridport is the highest cliff on the South Coast at 191 metres. This would possibly be a good starting point.

Heading east between Golden Cap & Abbotsbury there are some great views over the Fleet & Chesil beach.

Durdle Door further to the east would provide some stunning photo oportunities.

Going west from Golden cap you have Lyme Regis and in to Devon the red cliffs around Beer & Branscombe.

A couple of websites
www.dorsetphotos.co.uk
www.imagesofdorset.org.uk

Thanks for the suggestions!

"<i>I would recommend the Jurassic coast (Dorset/Devon). It's approx 100 miles from Broadway, but allow for just over a 2 hour drive.</i>"

In your dreams. Broadway to Bridport is more than 3 hours on a good day. (Even the AA routeplanner says 2hr 45 mins and one usually has to add 25-50% to those times.)

So it would be a minimum of 6 hours (and very likely 7 hrs) just car time w/o any stops or meals or anything. Sorry, but there really isn't any scenic seaside reachable from Broadway for a day trip.

Two options -- 1) "eat"one night in the cottage and go to Devon/Dorset for overnight. You could drive to Dorset and explore/stay the night, and visit Bath on the way back. So you are ticking two major items off at the cost of an extra night's accommodation. or 2) depending on where you are coming from to get to Broadway (or going afterwards)-- plug in a day/night to hit the coast on the way to or from Broadway.

Janis is right about the time required to travel from Broadway to the Jurassic coast. The roads are slow and liable to congestion. The journey to North Devon would be equally slow. Another option would be the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, which is attractive but does not really have high cliffs and crashing waves. The M4 motorway is OK once you are past Cardiff, but can be slow if there are road works, which is often the case.

Could I ask why you want to go to the coast? Is it because you rarely see the sea?

Broadway is pretty much in the centre of England (supposedly Meriden a bit further north in Warwickshire).

I live around 30 miles further south and would not contemplate a day trip to a beach from here. Admittedly my teenage kids will occasionally take off with their friends for a day/night out to Weston-Super-Mare (big, huge, massive family joke!) if they want to have a paddle, but it is certainly not at all pretty or scenic (mostly mud flats at low tide) and while it's not much more than 40, maybe 50 miles, it usually involves long delays on the M5 at Bristol.

Mid-April is going to be in the school holidays, and definitely avoid Fridays and Mondays and the rush hour traffic around Bristol. That's approximately 8-10am and 4-7pm, assuming there have been no prangs.

If you do use the M5 you could get to Minehead on the north Somerset coast in 2-3 hours. South Wales, ie Barry, is 2 hours.

However it has just occurred to me that you could get down to the south coast very easily and fairly quickly - using the A34 (you'd pick it up at Oxford, the A40 links to it) and go via Newbury and Winchester straight down to Southampton, and from there you could go east to Portsmouth or west to Bournemouth (best beaches at Christchurch, so I'm told).

I can get to Southampton (DDs at university there) in 1 1/2 hours from here, going via Swindon and Newbury. I find S'hampton is around 40 mins from Newbury.

The A34/M3/M27/A31 route to Bournemouth (in the morning and vv in the evening) can be a spectacular nightmare after the turnoff for Southampton once the weather starts getting warmer. The apparently straight, cross country route through Warminster is usually even worse. Our car practically does the Oxford-Southampton bit in its sleep, and it's almost always as Julia says: the moment you turn right for Bournemouth, the traffic can just seize up. In case you're looking at a map and see all that coast around Southampton: fuggedaboutit. Round Southampton, it's Britain's worst example of endless, landscape-destroying, suburban sprawl

From my bit of the Cotswolds, it's a very great deal less painful to drive early in the morning to the south Devon coast via the M4 (if necessary) and M5, even though the distances are greater.

But as Julia says: we're just about as far from the sea as you can get in Britain. The coast is the last place on earth I'd choose for a daytrip: I do it only for family funerals or if a client's paying.

I do it only for family funerals or if a client's paying.>>

that's the spirit, flanner.

Katie - if you are intent on doing this, I echo the north devon idea, and doing an overnight - otherwise you risk spending the whole day in the car.

Thanks! This is the inof I was looking for. We were interested in seeing the coast because we live in the midwestern US, but it looks like it is not worth the long driving time.

hi again, Katie,

since you are from the midwest, you may be satisfied with just seeing the sea rather than going in it - in which case you could make for the victorian resort of Clevedon, which is just before you get to Western super mud as it's known to some. according to Viamichelin.com it's a 1 hour 20 minute drive from Broadway, which isn't too bad.

there's a pier [or there was 30 years ago] and an air of faded elegance, and there is the SEA!

it's something that you could decide on on the day - you wouldn't have to pre-book!

Annhig: Thanks! We will look into that.