Coombe Hawne & Little Coombe Hawne

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Coombe Hawne, near Fowey, Cornwall, PL23 1HW

Coombe Hawne and its smaller neighbour, Little Coombe Hawne, are a pair of quiet, largely undeveloped coves tucked into the coastline between Readymoney Cove and Polridmouth Cove, on the stretch of shore running west from Fowey towards Gribbin Head. Where Readymoney Cove trades on its closeness to town, Coombe Hawne trades on the opposite: a genuine sense of having left the crowds behind, reached either by a short walk from a small National Trust car park inland at Coombe Farm or by continuing on foot along the coast path from Readymoney Cove itself. The reward for the slightly greater effort is a clear-watered, sheltered cove of grey sand and shingle that has become something of a local secret for snorkelling, with Little Coombe Hawne's rockier platform a short scramble further on offering some of the best rock pooling on this part of the coast.

Access to Coombe Hawne is part of its appeal. The small National Trust car park at Coombe Farm holds around thirty vehicles and sits a short distance inland, from where a permissive path crosses farmland and drops through a stile down to the cove - a walk of perhaps ten minutes each way, easy enough for most visitors but enough to filter out the passing crowds who stick to Fowey's more obvious beaches. Walkers already on the coast path have an alternative: Coombe Hawne lies roughly 850 metres from Readymoney Cove along the South West Coast Path, a short, scenic stretch of coastal walking with views back towards St Catherine's Castle and out over the mouth of the estuary. Either approach delivers visitors to a genuinely peaceful spot, with none of the facilities, ice cream vans or crowds that come with Fowey's more central beaches - part of the point, for those who make the trip.

The beach itself is smaller and quieter in character than Readymoney Cove, its grey sand and shingle giving way at each end to rock outcrops that shelter the water and, combined with generally good underwater visibility, have made Coombe Hawne a modestly well-known spot among locals for snorkelling - a rarer thing to find on this stretch of coast, most of which is either too exposed or too rocky underfoot for comfortable snorkelling from the shore. A short scramble over the rocks at the western end of the main cove leads to Little Coombe Hawne, a smaller, more enclosed pocket that is less a sandy beach in its own right than a rock platform and shingle patch, but one that rewards a slower, more exploratory visit: rock pools here hold the usual rich cast of small crabs, blennies, anemones and, at the right time of year, young fish sheltering in the shallows, making it a genuine draw for anyone who enjoys beachcombing over simply sunbathing.

This stretch of coast, like much of the ground between Fowey and Polperro further east, carries a real smuggling history reaching back to the mid-nineteenth century and earlier, when the many small, hard-to-watch coves along this shoreline offered ideal, discreet landing points for contraband brought in from France and beyond, well away from the customs officers based in Fowey's own harbour. Coombe Hawne's relative isolation - much the same quality that makes it appealing to a quiet modern visitor - would have made it just the sort of place favoured by free traders working this coast in the period, though, as with many small Cornish coves, specific documented incidents at Coombe Hawne itself are thinner on the ground than the broader, well-attested pattern of smuggling activity along this whole section of coastline.

There are no facilities of any kind at either cove - no toilets, no café, no shop - so visitors should come prepared, and there is no RNLI lifeguard patrol, which is true of most of the smaller coves in this folder away from Fowey's own beach. What Coombe Hawne offers instead is exactly what its harder-to-reach position promises: clean, clear water, genuine peace and quiet even at the height of summer, decent snorkelling, and a rock-pooling cove at Little Coombe Hawne that rewards patience. Dogs are welcome at both coves all year round, with no seasonal restriction, which - together with the walking-only or small-car-park access - makes Coombe Hawne a particularly popular choice for dog walkers looking to avoid the more crowded, seasonally restricted beaches closer to Fowey town itself.

The geology underfoot at Coombe Hawne is much the same Devonian slate and sandstone sequence that runs along this whole stretch of coast towards Fowey and beyond, folded and weathered into the low headlands that shelter the cove and give Little Coombe Hawne its distinctive rocky character. That mix of rock, shingle and sand, together with the clean water, supports a genuinely rich range of marine life close to shore - shore crabs, blennies, gobies and a good variety of seaweed species are easily found among the rocks at low tide, and snorkellers regularly report sightings of wrasse and other small fish sheltering around the rockier margins of the main cove. The surrounding coast path, running through gorse, blackthorn and pockets of coastal woodland, is itself a pleasant stretch for birdwatching, with stonechats, linnets and the occasional peregrine falcon among the species recorded along this part of the Fowey coastline.

Because Coombe Hawne has no facilities and a walk-in access from either direction, a visit here rewards a little preparation: water, food and sun protection are all worth bringing, since nothing is available to buy at the cove itself, and swimmers should check the state of the tide before setting out, since the amount of sand and the ease of moving between Coombe Hawne and Little Coombe Hawne both vary considerably between high and low water. The absence of a car park directly at the beach is, for most visitors, entirely the point - a genuine trade-off between convenience and the kind of quiet, uncrowded cove that has become increasingly hard to find on the more accessible parts of the Cornish coast.

Page last updated: 16 September 2026.

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