For Aunty Ceri’s recent birthday celebrations we all met at Manorbier Beach. We had planned a day out to visit Manorbier Castle, Beach and St James the Great Church. However, as we also had football and a busy morning we only had time for the beach and church in the end. Manorbier is a very picturesque village, take a look at our visit there:
Visit Manorbier
The National Park Authority run a car-park at Manorbier (Sat. Nav. Postcode: SA70 7SY). The charging period runs from 15 March to 7 November (inclusive). The charging hours are between 9am – 5pm. Parking costs £5 for over three hours. Season tickets are available.
This car park is ideally situated to visit both the beach, castle and the church.
Toilets are situated within the car-park (and they’re still currently free to use!).
Manorbier Castle
The castle can be viewed from the car park. I loved this view through the trees. It reminded me of the castle in Sleeping Beauty being hidden as the vines grew and weaved themselves around the castle.
Manorbier Castle is open from March to November, 10am – 5pm.
Tickets cost: Adults £5.50
Seniors £4
Children £3
Family ticket (2 adults, 2 children) £15
We haven’t visited the castle since the kids were small so we’ll definitely go there soon and do an updated blog post.
Manorbier Beach
Once everyone arrived we made the short walk to the beach to enjoy our picnic.
We passed a hairy caterpillar along the way.
Manorbier Beach is backed by sand dunes and a stream runs across the beach.
The beach is south westerly facing so great for surfing. However the strong currents mean great care has to be taken.
Manorbier Beach was awarded both a Seaside Award and Green Coast Award in 2019.
It’s a gorgeous beach. We saw body boarders, winter sun bathers (or snoozers), fellow picnicers, walkers, dog walkers and body boarders all enjoying the beach. It’s lovely just to stop and take in the view.
In this photo you can see the additional free parking along the coast on the way to Freshwater East.
Picnic Time
We enjoyed Ceri’s birthday picnic and the non drivers enjoyed bucks fizz.
Izzy reminds me so much of my mum as a young girl in this photo.
Dave surprised me with a Vego bar! My favourite!
The kids enjoyed making beach art.
They explored the wonderful rock pools.
Some of their finds.
“Big” Crab.
And “Little” Crab.
It was nice to spend time with my mum and sisters and our family.
Rebecca began making sand angels.
Can you spot the angel?
Caitlyn made Aunty Ceri a birthday “Sand-Cake”.
The kids took it in turns burying each other in the sand.
This caused much hilarity and laughter.
We played Ceri her personalised happy birthday songs.
Then there was more cake, this time a chocolate one.
This photo makes me laugh so much- the joys of lighting a candle on the beach!
After cake it was time to head back to the car park and up to the church. The girls wandered through the sand dunes.
We were treated to a stunning view of the castle from the beach.
The beach looks so inviting from the car park.
The church is currently having some work done! It is still open to visitors.
We took a few family snaps with the castle background.
I’ll share the church photos in the next post.
As our time here was over and the sun began to set we were left with one last glorious view of the beach before heading home.
Have you visited Manorbier? What do you think of the beach, church and castle?
What a lovely place, looks like you had a fab time
Amazing day out for you all – love your pics and snow angels
Oh wow, looks a beautiful place to visit, so far from us, would have to be a holiday
This place looks amazing Thanks for thee heads-up !
What a lovely place and what superb photographs. You obviously all had a wonderful time.
Absolutely stunning scenery