Marloes Sands () is an approx. long remote sandy beach in

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, near the village of

Marloes Marloes is a village and parish in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on the Marloes Peninsula west of Milford Haven and forms the western tip of the southern shore of St Brides Bay. It is within part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The parish ...

. It's broadly curved and surrounded by cliffs. Walking on the beach gives great views of

Skokholm Island Skokholm () or Skokholm Island is an island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales, south of the neighbouring island of Skomer. The surrounding waters are a marine reserve and all are part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Both islands a ...

and Gateholm Island.

Location and access

The beach is located SW from the Marloes village and there is a

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

car-park nearby (charge per day or free for National Trust members). There is a track that leads from the main road to the beach. There is a disused World War II Royal Air Force airfield

RAF Dale D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History The ...

, above the south-east cliffs of the beach. There are approximately three accesses to the beach which become very useful if you get caught by the tide coming in. Besides the main access from Runwayskiln, there is also access to the north, near Gateholm Island, that requires some

scrambling Scrambling is a mountaineering term for ascending steep terrain using one's hands to assist in holds and balance.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. It is also used to describe terrain that falls between hiking and rock climbing (as a “scramb ...

over the rocks and another access to the south that has steps leading to the midsection of the beach.

Geology

The surrounding cliffs are layered with red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

and grey

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

. A feature of the beach is the Three Chimneys, three vertical lines of hard

silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

sandstone and

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

. There used to be four chimneys, but the fourth crumbled in a severe storm of 1954.

Filming location

Marloes Sands was the filming location for: * ''

Snow White & the Huntsman ''Snow White and the Huntsman'' is a 2012 American fantasy film based on the German fairy tale "Snow White" compiled by the Brothers Grimm. The directorial debut of Rupert Sanders, it was written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Am ...

'' (September 2011). * ''

The Lion in Winter ''The Lion in Winter'' is a 1966 play by James Goldman, depicting the personal and political conflicts of Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their children and their guests during Christmas 1183. It premiered on Broadway at the ...

'' (1968).

References

External links

Marloes and St. Brides in Pembrokeshire
- the community website {{Coord, 51.72119, -5.20891, display=title Beaches of Pembrokeshire Bays of Pembrokeshire