BAMBURGH BEACH, NORTHUMBERLAND

Tufts of long grasses carpet the soft, golden dunes at this Northumberland idyll. Colonies of seagulls scour the sea towards the Farne Islands in search of fish. These waters, once extremely dangerous to sailors – one local heroine is Grace Darling, the daughter of the Longstone Rock lighthouse keeper, who, in 1838, helped her father save nine people from a shipwreck – now teem with seals, wading birds and the odd dolphin. But the pièce de résistance here is magnificent Bamburgh Castle, which perches on a rocky plateau 150ft above the sea. The Anglo-Saxons built a fortress at Bamburgh in the 6th century, when the area became the capital of the King of Bernicia. Destroyed by the Vikings, the castle was rebuilt by the Normans and sold to pay bankruptcy debts in the 18th century. It has been the crowning glory of this extraordinary beach since the 11th century.