How long coast of england

In the Norfolk village of Happisburgh, four miles north of Sea Palling, people joke grimly that Beach Road is now more beach than road. This time I made sure to head a few crucial yards inland, to the Hill House pub in the village centre.

My bedroom here is a converted signal box for the never-completed extension to the Great Eastern Railway. One man in the village reckoned that if the sea comes just a couple of feet higher than in previous winter storms, it could spill over the lip of the dunes and flood all the low-lying ground between here and Norwich, nearly 20 miles inland.

Possibly, but then this coast is still awash with memories of the great floods of , in which more than people lost their lives. A train pulling out of Hunstanton was lifted clean off the rails by a following wave, and further south a miracle baby floated to safety in her cot.

The echoes of that disaster are almost audible along these massive sand fringes, the human responses defiantly, hopefully visible in the groynes taking the battle out into the water and the revetments doing their best to shore up the flaky little rearguard cliffs. Sally Fishwick, senior adviser for coast path delivery, points out that in Trimmingham, north Norfolk, a people-counter recorded 2, walkers on a newly opened stretch of path in the spring of The north east section picks up at the Scottish border and takes walkers along the North Sea coastline to the Wash bay.

This stretch is home to beautiful beaches, castles, rocky cliffs, and tiny fishing villages tucked in sheltered coves. Next up is the south east section, which stretches south from the Wash and then shoots west to Southampton. A huge stretch of coastline, this area showcases long empty beaches, nature reserves, and quaint piers.

The final stretch — the south west path — picks up in Southampton and runs along the English Channel before turning north to the Welsh border. I mostly slept in a tent to save money but also because I felt that sleeping on the soil connected me to the landscape and meant I could be best-positioned for dawn and dusk photography.

I carried a pack of up to 20kg on my back and was self-sufficient in terms of food, fuel and power for five days at a time. Soon after, I reached the chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters in East Sussex, where walking along the rolling grass felt like flying above the sea.

By the time I got to the coast in Devon, dramatic cliffs had become the norm; and in Cornwall the coast path is so vertiginous it often involves hundreds of metres of daily ascent. Clockwise from top left: Camping equipment, camera and rations for four days of self-sufficiency; Quintin drying out at camp near Point Knap, Kintyre; drinks party on the beach at Ferring in Sussex.

The exhilaration of walking across the Severn Bridge was palpable, as it marked one-quarter of the journey done and also my entry into Wales. My diet was now supplemented by bara brith fruit loaf and Welsh cakes rather than Cornish pasties. I loved stopping in cafes and hearing the musicality of the Welsh language before heading out along another unknown clifftop path.

At Barmouth, the rail bridge runs like a zip across the landscape, with Cadair Idris and the surrounding mountains behind — the natural and manmade in perfect harmony. By the time I could see the Liver Building in Liverpool, I was limping heavily, my typical remedy of food, sleep and painkillers not helping. It transpired I had split a tendon in my foot, a repetitive strain injury which meant I needed to wear an immobilising boot for seven weeks while it healed. So, how long is the coastline of Great Britain?

Well, if you want to swim or kayak around all islands then you should think about training for a distance of around 2, miles. Yes, this is Britain kind of. Another one, just for fun. Dr Alasdair Rae is a senior lecturer in the geography department of the University of Sheffield. This was a polyline file, so I converted it to a polygon, and then generalised it several times using the Visvalingam algorithm in mapshaper.

What are the other big British islands? Remember that this refers to coastline length and not land area. All images in this post courtesy of the author. This article is from the CityMetric archive: some formatting and images may not be present. Contact us. White papers from our partners.