Seaside towns with Coldharbour vibes
We may sink and settle on the waves. The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water. They will float for a moment and then sink. – Virginia Woolf, The Waves
A lifelong obsession with the seaside
At heart, I’m a Londoner. To my family, getting to go to the seaside is a precious pursuit, a marker of public holidays. For me in particular, it’s peace. It’s the summer nights on which I’d go with my dad to a shingle beach where he’d fish for mackerel, dab, and whiting. He taught me how to cast, how to reel in the fish, how to measure it to make sure we didn’t need to throw it back. He also taught me the gory stuff too: the clobbering over the head, the gutting. I didn’t really care about the fishing. I just liked the quiet of these desolate, almost-empty beaches. The solitude.
Even now I’m drawn to them and really, it’s no wonder that Coldharbour is a seaside town. In alphabetical order, here are my ten personal favourite seaside towns across the UK and Ireland.
1. Beaumaris (Anglesey, Wales)
I love all of Anglesey’s landscapes: the silvery sand, the multicoloured rock, but I have to shout out picture-perfect Beaumaris with its wee Norman castle, charming town, and refurbished pier. There was even a toy shop that sold Jellycats and I’ve always been a big fan of buying those for the children in my life.
2. Borth (Aberystwyth, Wales)
Come for the Balamory houses, stay for the beautifully silky sand. The beach seems to stretch for miles and despite the youth hostel that I stayed in there (twenty years ago), it was dead quiet. The epitome of that mid-Welsh wildness.
3. Brixham (Devon, England)
More Balamory houses! Brixham is very special to my family, but I’ll just draw attention to the excellent fish and chips on offer, the seemingly omnipresent Salvation Army band, and the Golden Hind Museum Ship that’s just casually in the harbour.
4. Frinton-on-Sea (Essex, England)
Long story, but we once went all the way to Frinton to visit one particular sweetshop. Often overlooked for nearby Clacton, Frinton combines colourful beach huts with proper sandy beach. Fun fact: it’s geographically very close to the fictional Coldharbour.
5. Helston (Cornwall, England)
Oh, the chip shops, the seal sanctuary, the view of the stunning St Michael’s Mount. Down at the tip of Cornwall, Helston’s coastal paths are wild and winding above the green-blue waves of the Atlantic. Also RIP to Flambards, once the best theme park in the area (at least to this hard-to-please eleven-year-old).
6. Howth (Dublin, Ireland)
Now, I love Dublin as a city, but the moment I found out I could get to a fishing village on the DART… Now, I know I keep mentioning chips, but the chips were good. I came into the Victorian train station and the village is rugged, but walkable. Also, Howth Harbour Lighthouse is always worth a visit.
7. Leysdown-on-Sea (Kent, England)
One of my new happy places, Leysdown is a strangely desolate beach/country park on the strangely desolate Isle of Sheppey. There are beach huts and arcades, but the whole place just feels wonderfully windswept. Though make sure you avoid the nudist beach. We did. Thank God.
8. Portobello (Edinburgh, Scotland)
I did exactly the same thing as I did in Dublin: appreciated the beautiful city and then promptly took public transport to the nearest beach. I went on a very quiet spring day, when the sand was golden and the sky was cloud-speckled cornflour blue. A special mention goes to the unique Portobello pillars, carved from Coade stone.
9. Shanklin (Isle of Wight, England)
There’s an arcade, there’s fossils, there’s a ravine. Yes, it’s probably the most touristic place on this list, but as a dinosaur fiend in my childhood, the Isle of Wight has a very special place in my heart (cue Jurassic Park theme).
10. Whitstable (Kent, England)
Once home of the legendary Peter Cushing (he even has a bench), Whitstable is also famed for its oysters. In terms of town planning, it’s a bit of an odd duck and parking is atrocious, but the shingle beach and the oyster huts make it particularly striking on an overcast day (which is how it’s been almost every single time I’m there).
A little bit of Coldharbour’s atmosphere
If you’ve read my Rebecca blog (again, a book set at the seaside), you may have already seen the opening of Coldharbour. Even if you have though, feel free to enjoy again:
Before Alex knew it, she was staring at the sea.
That chill, churning sea, cloudier than the sky, blacker than the crows pecking at the scraps of crisp packet caught up in the rocks. She had always known those waves, she could name them, not aloud but in her soul, as sure and as certain as the water that clawed its way into shore and slunk back out like an alley cat on the prowl. She had let that sea embrace her up to her knees as a toddler, her ankles as a teenager, and the very tips of her fingers as a woman.
But there…
Where slivers of bright, salt-licked foil were trapped in the pebbles…
There was a glow.
The iridescent glow of Power.
