Sand Point and Middle Hope on the Somerset Coast.

Sand Point is a peninsula reaching out from Middle Hope just north of the village of Kewstoke and Sand Bay on the North Somerset coast.  It, together with Middle Hope, is an outlier of the Mendip Hills and resembles a smaller version of Brean Down 5 miles to the south west.  To enjoy the coastal scenery Sand Point is best approached from Weston-super-Mare along Kewstoke Road although from the M5 the shortest route is via Worle and on through country lanes to the coast.  Car parking is free to members in the National Trust car park at the northern end of Sand Bay. 

The view, on a misty day, from Sand Point south across Sand Bay to Birnbeck Island.

My visit was on a misty grey day early in the year but that enhanced my ability to appreciate the tranquillity and solitude as I explored the gently undulating grassland of Middle Hope before venturing on to the more craggy and difficult path to Sand Point.  It was not the best day for enjoying the views up and down the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary but my walk was pleasant enough and I came upon some interesting features.

 

Unsurprisingly, there is an Iron Age hill fort near the highest point (at 157ft) of the peninsula.  Further east there are stone walls built by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic War while at the eastern end of Middle Hope there was a World War Two weapons testing area.  Atop the cliffs are the ruins of a stone hut, dating from the 1850s and in use until the 1930s, where fishermen boiled shrimps caught on the mudflats below. 

The ruins of a the stone shrimpers hut on Middle Hope.

 

Also of interest is the fact that a line from Sand Point to Lavernock Point on the Welsh coast marks the boundary between the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel.