Holidays in Crackington Haven, North Cornwall – Beach, Folded Cliffs & Coast Path

HOLIDAYS IN CRACKINGTON HAVEN

Crackington Haven is one of the most spectacular places on the North Cornwall coast. A narrow, steep-sided valley runs down to a small cove of pebbles and sand, guarded by great headlands – Pencannow Point to the north and Cambeak to the south – whose cliffs of dark shale and sandstone are folded into astonishing zig-zag shapes.

Whichever way you approach, the views as you drop down into the haven are breathtaking. There has been only limited development over the years, and what there is sits comfortably in the valley: a pub, a couple of cafés, a beach shop, a handful of cottages and houses, and holiday homes scattered on the hillsides above.

It is a superb place for a family day out. The gently shelving beach is sheltered by the headlands, there are rock pools to explore at low tide, RNLI lifeguards patrol in the summer holidays, and the toilets, car park and cafés are only a few steps from the sand. In 2026 the beach holds a Seaside Award for its water quality and facilities.

Crackington Haven is also a walker’s paradise. The South West Coast Path climbs out of the cove in both directions: south over Cambeak to the remote beach of The Strangles and High Cliff, the highest cliff in Cornwall, and north past Pencannow Point to the little church of St Gennys. Much of the cliff land and farmland around the haven is cared for by the National Trust.

The village sits within the Cornwall National Landscape and the Heritage Coast, and many visitors come back time and again – for the summer sun and surf, but also for the peace of the quieter months, when Atlantic gales send the waves crashing against the cliffs and the valley is almost empty.

This guide covers everything you need for a holiday in Crackington Haven: the beach, the village and the Coombe Barton Inn, the famous folded cliffs, the history of the haven, Cambeak, The Strangles and High Cliff, St Gennys Church, things to do, walks, places nearby and local events, plus practical information on parking, buses, shops and health services.

CRACKINGTON HAVEN BEACH

Crackington Haven beach lies in an enclosed bay at the mouth of the valley, sheltered on both sides by high cliffs. The upper beach is mainly pebbles, but as the tide goes out a good stretch of sand is uncovered across the bay, and the beach shelves gently into the sea – making it a good family beach, especially around low to mid tide.

Along the western fringe of the beach, and below the cliffs on either side, ledges of folded rock run out into the sea, and at low water they are full of rock pools – perfect for crabbing and shrimping. A small stream crosses the beach on its way to the sea, and only the road separates the beach from the village cafés and the pub.

RNLI lifeguards patrol the beach daily through the main summer holiday period, usually from 10am to 6pm; always swim between the red and yellow flags. Outside the patrol season there is no lifeguard cover, and the sea here can be powerful, with rip currents when the surf is up.

Crackington Haven also has a quiet surfing reputation. The beach can produce a fun right-hand wave over sand, at its best in a north-westerly swell with a light south-easterly offshore wind, and it is usually far less crowded than the big surf beaches around Bude. Surfboards and wetsuits can be hired in the village in season.

At high tide, particularly on big spring tides, the sand disappears and the sea can reach the pebbles close to the road, so check tide times before planning a full day on the beach. Dogs are not allowed on the beach between 10am and 6pm from 15 May to 30 September. A Coastal Protection Order means stones, rocks and fossils must not be taken from the beach.

Out of season, the beach takes on a different character. On stormy winter days the Atlantic rollers thunder into the bay and spray flies over the headlands, while on calm, clear days you may have the sand and rock pools almost to yourself – with a warm welcome waiting at the pub afterwards. See our Crackington Haven beach guide for more details.

THE VILLAGE & COOMBE BARTON INN

Crackington Haven is a small village, but it has everything you need for a day at the beach. Grouped around the bridge and the road behind the beach are the Coombe Barton Inn, the Cabin Café and a second café, a beach shop selling buckets, spades and beach goods, surf hire, public toilets and the car park.

The big white building overlooking the beach is the Coombe Barton Inn. It was originally built as the house of the captain, or manager, of the local slate quarries, and today it is the village pub, with a large bar and restaurant looking out over the beach and the sea. It serves Cornish ales and food at lunchtime and in the evening, welcomes families and dogs, and has rooms for visitors.

The stream that runs down the valley passes under the road bridge beside the car park on its way to the beach. A water mill once stood in the village, and its leat can still be traced. The bridge, several homes and the pub were badly damaged in August 2004, when the same storm that devastated Boscastle sent a flash flood down the valley; the village has long since recovered.

Above the beach, houses and holiday cottages are scattered across the steep hillsides of the valley, and the lanes climb inland to the hamlets of Middle and Higher Crackington. The village is part of the parish of St Gennys, a large rural parish of farms, hamlets and deep wooded valleys stretching along the coast between Bude and Boscastle.

For a small place, Crackington Haven has a strong sense of community. The Go Cornwall Bus 95 stops by the Cabin Café and Tremayna Chapel, and the village is a popular stop for walkers on the South West Coast Path – it is the end of one of the toughest stages of the whole path, the switchback walk from Boscastle over High Cliff.

FOLDED CLIFFS & GEOLOGY

Crackington Haven is famous among geologists. The cliffs around the cove are made of layers of sandstone and dark shale, laid down as sediment on the floor of a deep sea in the Carboniferous period, around 300 million years ago. Later, during the great mountain-building episode that shaped south-west Britain, these layers were squeezed, buckled and folded.

The result can be seen all around the haven: rock beds bent into tight arches (anticlines) and troughs (synclines), zig-zag folds, faults and steeply tilted strata, picked out by the alternating pale sandstone and dark shale. The rocks take their name from the village – geologists call them the Crackington Formation, and the sequence runs along much of this coast – part of the Carboniferous rocks of the Bude and Culm Coast.

Erosion is still very active here. The soft shales are easily worn away, rocks fall from overhanging cliffs, and old landslips have created slumped and fissured undercliffs on the way to Cambeak. The headland of Cambeak itself stands out because it is made of harder rock than the cliffs on either side.

The cove and its cliffs are part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and fossils, including goniatites – relatives of the ammonites – have been found in the rocks. A Coastal Protection Order protects the beach, so please photograph anything you find and leave it in place. Keep well away from the base of the cliffs, which can collapse without warning.

A few miles north along the coast, the cliffs at Millook Haven show the same rocks folded into a spectacular pattern of chevron folds, one of the most photographed geological sights in Cornwall. Together, Crackington and Millook draw students and researchers from all over the country – see our geology guide to the Bude and Culm Coast for more on these remarkable rocks.

HISTORY OF CRACKINGTON HAVEN

Crackington is an old name. Its Cornish form, Porthkragen, is usually translated as “sandstone cove”, and the manor of Crackington is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. For centuries the valley was a farming community, with scattered farmsteads such as Trevigue, first mentioned in 1327, sheltering in the hillsides out of the westerly gales.

Until the 19th century Crackington Haven was a small working port – though it never had a quay or jetty. Little sailing vessels were run up onto the beach at high tide to unload coal and limestone from South Wales, then loaded with slate from the local quarries and farm produce for the return voyage. A lime kiln at the haven burnt the limestone to make lime to sweeten the acid local soil, and sand and seaweed were carried up from the beach to the fields as fertiliser.

In 1836 royal assent was given to an ambitious plan to transform the haven into a new town called Port Victoria, with a 12-acre harbour and a railway link to Launceston. Like several grand Victorian schemes on this coast, it was never built – which is why Crackington Haven remains the small, unspoilt place it is today.

This wild stretch of coast has claimed many ships over the centuries; in one year in the 1820s, 23 ships were believed lost along it. The people of St Gennys were known of old as “wreckers and wrestlers”, and the churchyard is the last resting place of many shipwrecked sailors. A more recent wreck lies just south of the beach at Tremoutha Haven: the German E-boat S89, which broke free of her tow in heavy weather on 5 October 1946 and ran ashore. Her engines can still be seen among the boulders at low tide.

The arrival of the railway in North Cornwall in 1893 brought the first holidaymakers, and tourism gradually replaced the sea trade. In 2004 the village suffered badly in the flash flood of 16 August, but it has recovered, and today Crackington Haven is a peaceful holiday village, much of its coast protected by the National Trust.

CAMBEAK, THE STRANGLES & HIGH CLIFF

South of Crackington Haven lies some of the most dramatic coastline in Cornwall. The coast path climbs steeply out of the cove above Tremoutha Haven, dipping into little hanging valleys where streams tumble over the cliff edge as waterfalls, to reach Cambeak – a narrow headland around 100 metres high, with views north to Pencannow Point and, on a clear day, as far as Lundy and Trevose Head.

Beyond Cambeak, below the path, is the Northern Door, a natural arch cut through a fin of rock, and the small sandy cove of Little Strand. Then comes The Strangles, a remote National Trust beach of sand, shingle and striped pebbles beneath towering cliffs, reached only on foot by a steep path. There are no facilities, the beach is cut off at high water and the currents are dangerous – it is a place for exploring at low tide, not for swimming.

Above The Strangles rises High Cliff, at about 223 metres (735 feet) the highest cliff in Cornwall. Its great slope of grass and scrub drops almost to the sea, and the views from the top, along the Heritage Coast in both directions, are magnificent. Thomas Hardy and Emma Gifford walked these cliffs during their courtship in the 1870s, and the landscape found its way into his novel A Pair of Blue Eyes.

Inland, the National Trust farm of Trevigue, with its 16th-century farmhouse, is run by Trust tenants who manage the clifftops for wildlife. Soay sheep, goats and cattle graze the heath to keep scrub in check, and wild flowers such as kidney vetch, bird’s-foot trefoil, tormentil and thrift flourish, with butterflies such as the common blue, clouded yellow and small copper. Kestrels, buzzards, stonechats and linnets are often seen, and grey seals around the rocks below.

See our guide to The Strangles for more on visiting the beach.

ST GENNYS CHURCH

Half a mile north of the haven, over Pencannow Point, the little church of St Gennys stands on a sloping site above the sea, with breathtaking views along the coast towards Bude, Morwenstow and, on a clear day, Lundy Island. It is a medieval church thought to stand on an early Christian site, and part of the building is Norman.

The church has a short, sturdy tower with a pyramidal roof housing a ring of four bells, and inside, the aisle arcades are built partly of granite and partly of Polyphant stone. It was restored in 1871. The dedication is usually thought to be to the 4th-century martyr St Genesius, though it may instead commemorate a Welsh saint, Gwynws.

The churchyard is the last resting place of shipwrecked mariners from this dangerous coast – and perhaps a few smugglers too. Nearby are two holy wells, one of which was restored in the 1920s. The walk from Crackington Haven over Pencannow Point to the church and back is one of the shortest and most rewarding walks from the village.

THINGS TO DO IN CRACKINGTON HAVEN

Crackington Haven is a place to slow down. A day on the beach, a walk on the cliffs and a meal at the pub is a perfect holiday day here – but there is plenty more to discover nearby, from Hardy country to the harbours of Boscastle and Bude.

Here are some of the best things to do in and around Crackington Haven:

1. Spend a day on the beach – best around low tide, when the sand and rock pools are uncovered.
2. Explore the rock pools – on the folded rock ledges either side of the cove.
3. Try surfing – with board and wetsuit hire in the village in season.
4. Study the folded cliffs – the zig-zag rocks that gave the Crackington Formation its name.
5. Climb Cambeak – the dramatic headland south of the cove.
6. Walk to The Strangles – a remote National Trust beach below High Cliff.
7. Stand on High Cliff – the highest cliff in Cornwall.
8. Visit St Gennys Church – over Pencannow Point, with views to Lundy.
9. See the chevron folds at Millook – a few miles north along the coast.
10. Explore Boscastle – the National Trust harbour village about 4 miles south.

WALKS FROM CRACKINGTON HAVEN

Crackington Haven is a superb base for walking. The parish of St Gennys takes great pride in its footpaths, and with the help of the National Trust and the coast path team they are well signed and maintained, leading along the cliffs and through quiet wooded valleys.

The classic short walk heads south over Cambeak to the clifftop above The Strangles, then turns inland past Trevigue farm and returns down the wooded Ludon Valley, where oak, ash, holly, hazel and willow line the stream – around three and a half miles. The National Trust’s “Crackington cracker” walk follows a similar route.

Heading north, the coast path climbs over Pencannow Point to St Gennys Church, an easy loop of about two and a half miles. Keen walkers can carry on north towards Millook and Widemouth Bay, or south over High Cliff and Beeny Cliff to Boscastle – one of the hardest but most spectacular stages of the South West Coast Path. The 95 bus makes it easy to walk one way and ride back.

Wherever you walk, wear good boots, take water and keep well back from the unfenced cliff edges. The paths are steep, with steps and stiles, and can be muddy, and dogs should be kept under close control near livestock.

AROUND CRACKINGTON HAVEN

• Boscastle – the Elizabethan harbour, the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic and the Valency Valley, about 4 miles south.
• St Juliot’s Church – restored by Thomas Hardy, where he met Emma Gifford in 1870, inland near Boscastle.
• Millook Haven – a pebble cove with spectacular chevron-folded cliffs, a few miles north.
• Widemouth Bay – a long sandy surf beach on the way to Bude.
• Bude – surf beaches, the sea pool and the canal, about 7 miles north.
• Tintagel – the legendary castle and the Old Post Office, a few miles beyond Boscastle.

LOCAL EVENTS

Crackington Haven is a quiet village, and most of its events are simple pleasures – gig rowing in summer, guided walks and the busy weeks of the school holidays. For bigger festivals, Boscastle and Bude are close by.

• Pilot gig rowing (summer) – the Boscastle and Crackington Pilot Gig Club rows and races along this coast.
• RNLI lifeguard season (summer holidays) – daily patrols on Crackington Haven beach.
• National Trust events (school holidays) – guided walks and family activities around Boscastle and the coast.
• Boscastle Food, Art & Craft Festival (early October, in recent years) – a few miles south in Boscastle.
• Royal Cornwall Show (June) – three days at the Royal Cornwall Showground near Wadebridge.

Dates change from year to year, so check before you travel.